166 HUNTING REMINISCENCES 



pieces, and every stable has its quantum of cripples. 

 Certainly the season under consideration saw a 

 climax of dirt and good sport, and the weather 

 continued wonderfully open considering hounds 

 were stopped only fifteen days for frost. 



A memorable and rather sensational day's sport 

 happened on November 14th from Stubton, when 

 a stout running fox faced all the elements of 

 danger before he was numbered with the slain. 

 The lady pack roused him in the Plantation near 

 the Hall, and he ran a ring for a few fields before 

 he went straight away for Whitehills, through the 

 covert on to the railway, where he was so blown 

 that he lay down close to a passing train. To save 

 the pack from destruction they were stopped, and 

 some plate-layers drove the fox off the line, nearly 

 every hound having a snap at him before he reached 

 Whitehill Covert. Going through covert like a 

 shot, he pointed away as if he meant Barkstone 

 Gorse, but finding the pace too severe, changed his 

 tactics and reached the river Witham with the 

 pack only twenty yards from his brush. Hounds 

 dashed over the river, but never recovered the line 

 again on the far side, so that it was pretty certain 

 this good fox must have drowned after leading the 

 pack for thirty-three minutes. 



A heavy fall towards the end of November 

 placed Gillard hors de combat, as he hurt the 

 muscles of his neck and was very much shaken. 

 However, he was not so easily knocked out as some 

 people might think, for in a very few days he came 

 up smiling like an old prize-fighter, ready to be at 



