62 Silk and Scarlet. 



good four miles, best pace. Lord Wilton was took in 

 as well as the rest. He comes up to one of the gen- 

 tlemen at Norton Gorse, and says, " You mitst have 

 had a capital thing : have you lost or changed V They 

 didn't find at Norton ; then they were for going to 

 Glen Gorse ; but part of it was cut ; so they went off 

 to Hardriggs. I don't know where all the foxes had 

 got to that day ; none at Nosely Wood, or Staunton 

 Wood, or Glooston Wood, or Rams Head. Nearly 

 all the field got tired out and went home. Blame me! 

 they'd never have found at Vowes Gorse, if it hadn't 

 been for Mr. Hodgson. He was master of the Ouorn 

 then ; it put him up, all his country being so blank ; 

 so he wades into the gorse with his jack-boots, and he 

 whips a fox out himself It was a hottish day in 

 April ; and they hadn't very much of a run. Mr. 

 Smith went to Lincolnshire — Sir Richard was master 

 then — to bid it good-bye ; they had some grand sport 

 in the woods there ; killed five foxes and run one to 

 ground in six days. 



HisBeivoirDay. . ^he old Dukc gave him a grand day 

 in his country. The hounds slep at 

 Ropsley Kennels, ten miles from Belvoir; they'd 

 vanned them there from Lincolnshire. They first 

 found a vixen in Ropsley Rice Wood, and it kept 

 knocking about half an hour ; then it went away for 

 Hunby, and he lost it one or two fields off another 

 big wood. Mr. Smith, he was patient as anything 

 that day ; he casts forward, and he crossed the line of 

 a disturbed fox ; such a ding right through Ingoldsby, 

 Osgodby Coppice, Truham Parks Wood, and Nor- 

 wood, right to Grimsthorpe Oaks. Will Goodall gets 

 into the wood, and he sees the fox in one of the rides ; 

 off he slips quite quiet to Mr. Smith, and tells him ; 

 he was casting across the park. When he brings the 

 hounds, blame me, if the fox wasn't standing there still, 

 waiting for him. Mr. Smith come to the spot, and he 

 sees him too ; it 'ud be nigh four minutes, and he'd 



