230 THE QJJORN HUNT 



Scholes, Saxelby, and Welby Fishponds. Just thirty minutes from 

 the start the Nottingham road was crossed, and by this time 

 some of the horses and riders had had enough, the field having 

 tailed terribly ; but this was merely the introduction to the run, 

 and twenty-two minutes after crossing the Nottingham road 

 hounds were close to Holwell village. Sir Richard Sutton, Lord 

 Granby, Lord Wilton, and Mr. Little Gilmour 1 were in the front 

 rank, but no one else appears to have been very near them at 

 that moment. From Holwell to Scalford the pace moderated to 

 some extent ; another ten minutes at the previous rate would have 

 left the hounds all to themselves. Hounds, however, again ran 

 faster as they swept into the valley towards Brentingby, and 

 were travelling quickly as the line lay in the direction of Freeby 

 Wood, which the fox did not enter ; and then leaving Sproxton 

 Thorns to the left he went away towards Owston, where, bending 

 to the left, he made for Sproxton Church. In a farmyard through 

 which the fox ran was the carcass of a dead sheep, and the fox 

 actually stopped to have a bite as he went along. Passing through 

 Saltby village and going on till within a couple of miles of 

 Bescoby Oaks the fox swung short to the right, and running to 

 the right of Swallow Hole crossed Saltby Heath, ran between 

 Humberstone Gorse and Tipping to the Three Queens, and was 

 eventually pulled down in a field adjoining the road leading from 

 Denton to Hungerton Old Hall, Harlaxton perhaps being the 

 place at which the run may be said to have finished. At Denton 

 Park it was said that the fox was on one side of a fence and the 

 hounds on the other, but the pack were so beat that they could 

 not get over the fence. It must not be left unsaid that " Master 

 Egerton, youngest son of the Earl of Wilton, was able to ride 

 through the entire run." Horses and hounds were dead beat and 

 could not possibly travel back to kennel that night, so the whole 

 establishment, as well as the few who had struggled to the end, 

 were hospitably entertained at Belvoir, departing for their homes 

 next morning. 



1 Mr. Gilmour was a Scotchman, but early betook himself to Leicester- 

 shire, where he belonged to Lord Rokeby's Club at Melton Mowbray. He 

 was only a young man of about twenty-three or twenty-four when " Nimrod" 

 introduced him into the famous <2uarterly Review run, but as a matter of 

 fact Mr. Gilmour never hunted with the Quoin during the mastership of 

 Mr. Osbaldeston. The sketch, altogether a fancy one, was not written at 

 the time, a circumstance which accounts for a mistake or two. Mr. Gilmour 

 was one of Leicestershire's heavy weights, riding nearly seventeen stone, yet 

 he was almost invariably in the front rank. He died at St. John's Wood on 

 30th September 1887, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh. 



