2i6 COURSING 



courses going on close together. The greyhounds who were 

 running number one were, of course, dead beat, and neither 

 was any use afterwards ; but it was clearly established at the 

 time that the same hare was always before them, several of the 

 stragglers having been able in different positions to watch 

 the performance from start to finish. I may mention that the 

 hare was fresher than her opponents at the end, and, if my 

 memory serves me right, she actually escaped. 



Of course, with such an enormous programme set forth 

 every year, it can easily be understood that game is very plen- 

 tiful over the Rainton estate, but for all that the card often takes 

 a lot of working off, and to my mind the dimensions thereof 

 are sadly in want of a shortening process, which would allow 

 of a somewhat later start in the morning. As it is, Mr. Snowdon 

 marshals his forces long before the February sun has struggled 

 through, and on the first and second days headquarters at 

 Ripon have to be left very shortly after seven o'clock, it being 

 nothing unusual to find the sport in full swing an hour later ; 

 indeed, I once saw the sixth brace handed over to the slipper 

 just as the Ripon Cathedral clock tolled out the half after 

 eight, and I recollect perfectly that there had been no waiting 

 for late dogs, and that the crowd was even then almost as big 

 as at any portion of the day. 



Another very important fixture of the Club is the two days' 

 gathering held over Lord Ravensworth's Eslington estate in 

 North Northumberland, and here again the early rising move- 

 ment is strongly practised. The country is of a wild and 

 roughish type, but the scenes amid which the courser's day is 

 spent are exceedingly picturesque, and the air which blows off 

 the Cheviots is of the purest and keenest character. The 

 getting to and from Eslington was once a very serious matter. 

 Hundreds of enthusiastic coursers used (before the railway 

 was made) to make Alnwick their headquarters, and, rising in 

 the middle of the night, drive in December darkness over the 

 fourteen miles of hilly ground which lie between the ducal 

 domain of the house of Percy and the battle-ground of the 



