3o6 Silk and Scarlet, 



coloured Herefords, for whom the Royal Society has 

 not lived in vain, dot the pastures to the left, and 

 lend life to the deep green mass of Longner's woods 

 behind. 



The Hounds of Large hounds did not suit the small 

 Shropshire. enclosures of Shropshire in those days, 

 and they were given up ; but now hounds go over the 

 fence, and do not, as of yore, require three or four 

 jumps to get through them. The Cheshire hounds 

 were, as a general thing, too flying for Will Staples's 

 purpose, but still some of his best hounds were from 

 that blood. Virgin \>y Cheshire VaHant from Fancy 

 by Lonsdale's Palafox, was good for eight seasons, 

 but she never left Will's heels for the first. In Shaw- 

 bury Heath she was invaluable, as it was full of gutters 

 two feet deep, covered with ling and grig at the top, 

 and she was the first to find that the fox ran these 

 ditches, and to teach the others to go there. Will got 

 experience of something more than ditches here. He 

 had long noted the old Shawbury Mill dam with a 

 view to a short cut some day, and when he did try his 

 hand at it, he and his horse went in together, and the 

 latter dragged him out as he clung to its tail. Mr. 

 Smith Owen told him to go home and change, but he 

 reappeared in twenty minutes, clad in a farmer's shoot- 

 ing-coat and plaid breeches^ and nicked in with his 

 hounds near Wytheford Bridge. 



Shropshire If possible he lovcd Woodman still 

 Woodman, better than Virgin, and he never had any 

 that would face a Shropshire crowd so well, and go 

 back so resolutely with their hackles up to the place 

 where they last knew of it. Woodman was by Wild- 

 boy by Osbaldeston's Wonder from Remnant, and 

 was rather a flat-sided hound under twenty-three. His 

 stock were not big, and most of them tick-marked, 

 and like him, " knew nothing about tiring." Tom 

 Goosey bred from him at Belvoir, and at the time of 

 the madness he went to the Cheshire kennel ; but good 



