352 



Silk and Scarlet, 



Willing behaved very ill, running hare most obsti- 

 nately in Easton Wood." There is also a word of 

 condolence " for poor old Trusty, who never got away 

 from Irnham Wood, and missed it altogether." He 

 tells, too, how on one occasion he " had eleven and 

 a-half couple of stallions out ;" how "George and Jem 

 both got into Lenton Brook ;" how " Knipton gave 

 me a terrible fall, jumping into a blind grip (no fault 

 of his) ;" and how he had to whip off at night, " leaving 

 him to give us another good run, and die, I hope, 

 honourably in the open." 



The closing entry was as follows — 



**0n Wednesday, April 6th, we met at Bel voir. Found our first fox 

 in Barkston Wood ; run ringing about the hills with a very bad scent 

 for two hours, when the hounds began to improve, getting off a vixen 

 which had laid up her cubs. On to an old dog-fox. They set to like 

 business ; and after running him hard for an hour-and-half, they forced 

 him out over the Doghorse pasture — a ring over Musson's farm, and 

 back to the wood. Away again, the same ring, in view of the hounds 

 to cover in a large drain, which Comely was soon in, and drove him 

 out ; and they killed him most handsomely in the open, after being en- 

 gaged from first finding in the morning for four hours — thus ending one 

 of the worst seasons on record. A hot sunny day like June, wind South, 

 glass very low, and the ploughs as dry and hard as iron, the hedges and 

 trees all as green as in the middle of summer, and a great many nests of 

 young birds already hatched. Leverets and cubs are very forward ; 

 indeed, such a forward spring has never been known by the oldest 

 inhabitant. 



His Death. 



A bad fall from the first of the three 

 horses near the Reeded House, when he 



