128 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



remarkable runs on record in Aylesbury Vale. We 

 trotted on to Drayton Mead, about four miles 

 distant, and found the fox had been despatched 

 about a quarter of an hour, and the hounds were at 

 once laid on. I should mention that although the 

 hounds of this pack were called harriers, they were 

 draft hounds from many of the best packs of stag 

 and fox hounds in Enofland, beino- for their oriofinal 

 business being somewhat undersized. The foxes 

 were brought from his lordship's estate, Lowther 

 Castle, in Cumberland, and after proper care and 

 training in some barns at Tring, were taken in a box 

 to the open country and turned down to provide 

 sport in the vale, nearly three hundred miles from 

 their birthplace. Generally these ' red rovers ' 

 went away wildly at a tremendous pace. On this 

 occasion reynard took a fine line of country over the 

 best part of the vale, and the pace was terrific. 

 My friend soon took the lead, knowing the country 

 well, and, as he told me afterwards, found himself 

 quite at home on the mare ; and that although he 

 had had some clever horses, he never rode so 

 brilliant a performer as this. I saw him come to 

 the Broughton brook or mill head, so famed after- 

 wards in the great steeple-chase won by Vain 

 Hope, ridden by W. Archer, the father of the cele- 

 brated Fred, Jem Mason, of ' Lottery ' fame, coming 

 in second on the ' British Yeoman.' The mare 

 cleared it magnificently, and after passing to the 

 south of the town of Aylesbury, the fox took a 

 line over a very severe country, and when the dusk 



