A Clipper with the H.H.—Mr. Tredcroft’s hounds showed a most extraordinary day’s sport on Tuesday last, when a large field assembled at the Old Manor Farm, at West Tisted. That fine old English gentleman, Sir James Tichborne, was known to have given strict orders to his keepers to befriend the foxes in all his covers, and his worthy tenant, Mr. James Stubbs, entertained the sportsmen with true English hospitality.
Soon after 11 o’clock we trotted off merrily to Ashton Wood, fully reckoning on a good day, for the air was calm and cool, and the ground moist but firm. A few minutes after the hounds had dashed into cover we heard a whimper, and after a single cheer from Nason the pack were together in full cry. While one fox was viewed towards Privett, the hounds broke away after another towards Basing Park, racing over the good scenting-ground, and carrying the line steadily across the fallows and wheat. A momentary check in the park let up the line riders, and after flying across the grass, we reached the lane outside the Park, and were soon satisfied that the gallant fox had either a distant home to make for, or intended to trust to his speed and strength to save his life. The pack ran beautifully over the stiffly-fenced clay lands of Froxfield, and after crossing the turnpike-road from Petersfield to Alresford, not far from the ‟Trooper Inn,” they raced on over the open to the highest point of Hawkley Hanger. We now feared that after being hard run for six or seven miles, the fox would not quit the Hangers, but our sport was by no means at an end, and we had scarcely time to look over the beautiful country before us—the Petersfield vale and the forests of Woolmer and the Holt, backed by the Sussex and Surrey hills —when a holloa was heard in the meadows below us, and we saw the hounds racing down the steep hill side. To descend the almost perpendicular chalky hills was in itself a service of danger, but there was no alternative for those who meant to see anything more of the chase. The gallant few now had the enjoyment all to themselves, and it was a treat to see the pack going over the grass with a breast-high scent. Banks, double ditches, and water-courses came in quick succession, and the Greatham stream had twice to be crossed before the enclosures were cleared and the hounds reached the open heaths of Woolmer Forest. Here the dangers and difficulties were no longer high banks and boggy brooks, but holes and ruts which it required almost instinct to avoid. After a mile or two over the heath, in which the hounds followed every turn of the fox, we came to one of the large enclosures just inside of which gallant, but ill-fated reynard laid down. His rest was quickly broken, and, although he made another effort for his life, the hounds soon caught sight of him, and in few minutes he was run into amidst the fir-trees under the feet of the horsemen. The find had been at half-past 11, the finish was at a quarter to one, in which time the pack had run a distance of 12 miles as the crow flies. As we found ourselves near Liphook, close to the line of the new Portsmouth Railway, most of the 25 ‟good men and true” who were in at the death had many weary miles to traverse before they could
‟Meetly stable their steeds in stall.”