Cup, and Captain Spencer had a sweetener after his Altcar disappointment, by Seagull's victory, to whom Jeannie Deans, whom Sunbeam polished off so cleverly for the Waterloo, ran up. Seagull, who might have had a nearer thing with Blackness (a great favourite of ours), in the first course, if she had not fallen at a drain, beat Waroffice this time, and reversed the Liverpool fiat, which so many objected to; while Deacon and Neville were among those vanquished, in their second and third courses, respectively. After their first course, Scotland had eleven, England nineteen, and Ireland two champions standing. Ireland was out in the first ties, and after the second ties, it was seven English versus one Scotch, viz., Hippogriff, who had just beaten Neville to his heart's content. However the latter came again, and defeated Black Flag in the deciding course for the Champion Collar. The hares here are very superior in stoutness to the Waterloo ones; and the luck of Captain Spencer in having two such good dogs in his kennel at one time has seldom been surpassed.

Ruff's Turf Guide moves with the times, and it now contains a record of steeple chases, as well as the new rules of betting, and all the old features, jockeys, trainers, &c., well worked up. So carefully is it done, that even in the "Races past" the change of names among horses has been duly noted. There is nothing else in sporting literature that calls for especial remark except that "Argus" has abandoned the idea of publishing his long-promised "Racing Photographs" as a book, and that we have concluded an arrangement with him for the purchase of the copyright, and intend giving them in future at the rate of eight pages or so per month. We may also observe that it is our intention to make our work much more of a portrait gallery in its illustrations; and that while we shall steadily follow out our jockey and huntsman series at the rate of two and three portraits a-year respectively, we propose (beginning with Mr. Farquharson next month) to bring out very frequently portraits of masters of hounds, as well as of great racing and coursing

ENGRAVED BY J. B. HUNT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

It will be one-and-thirty years, come December, since "Nimrod" set the clubs and the hunting world in a roar, by his "Tour" anecdotes of the dreams and the prayers, and the sayings and the doings of the celebrated Holderness master, whom he irreverently wrote of as "Tommy Hodgson," and his equally-famous whip, Will Danby. The former has long since hung up his horn: but Will is now on the point of completing the forty-eighth season of his life in scarlet, during which he has hunted every nook and corner of Yorkshire; and, although the grey hairs may be seen straggling under his cap, he is a wonderful instance of what a hardy Yorkshire constitution,

good temper, and rigid temperance can effect for a man in "these degenerate days."

The scene of his birth and childhood was laid at West Appleton, near Catterick; and the former event came off A.D. 1794. Hornby Castle, under whose noble owner his father held his farm, was within a very short distance; and in after-years, his Grace converted one of the farm-houses which were included in the lease, into a kennel for his hounds. At this period Will was only rising fourteen; but the ruling passion had set in with desperate intensity. Day after day, he slipped off the farm, and helped the feeder to walk the hounds about, and thus completely established himself in the good graces of Kit Skaife, the huntsman. Four years wore on; and at seventeen, he at last pulled on his boots, and got the long-looked-for start as whipper-in. During the seven years he lived with his Grace, he never exceeded nine stone; and he did ample justice to the stock of Pandolpho, which then formed the staple of the Hornby Castle stud. "When Will joined his Grace, there were no less than fourteen hunters by him in the stables-all equally good, and up to heavy weights in the longest day. They were Pan, Pandemic, Panada, Panegyric, Pandora, Pandolpha, Pancake, Jenny, Jacky, Mitchell, Dolly Mitchell, Young Mary, and another. It was on Pandora that Will finished, almost alone, on that complete Billesdon Coplow day when they found a fox at Howe Bank, and ran him out of Wensleydale into Swaledale, and killed him at Craik Pot, after a burster of three hours; while the great Applegarth Scaur day, when they found above Richmond, and went right away into Westmoreland, fell to Young Mary's lot." The country was a singularly wild and beautiful one, all dells and ling; but in 1818, some difficulty occurred with the Duke of Cleveland about foxes, and the hounds were given up; Kit Scaife, who was always a great man for kennel condition, taking the head of his Grace's racing stud.

man.

Will's next engagement was a temporary one of seven weeks, as second horseman with Mr. Barrett, of Carlton Hall; and then he became first whip to the Badsworth, under Joe Page, who died at the end of his first season. Mr. Hodgson then succeeded Sir Bellingham Graham as master; and Will officiated in the same capacity for two seasons more, under John Richards. We next find him engaged as second whip, along with Tom Day (who is now ending his days within a stone's-throw of the Quorn kennels), to Richard Lord Scarborough's hounds, of which Dick Adams was then the huntsHis hunting prospects, how ever, received a sad blight before the end of the season, in consequence of a rheumatic fever, the result of swimming the river at the north side of Grove during a run in that country. Cantley Wood, near Rotherham, was the fixture some three weeks after; and as the men were waiting with the hounds in a stonepit, Will was suddenly seized with coma, fell from his horse, and was carried home insensible in his Lordship's carriage, which luckily drove up at that moment. For nearly three weeks, he lay almost without sign or motion; and although the Sandbeck doctor was a bad prophet, a year and a-half passed by before he could go into commission once more. When he did reappear, it was in the green livery of the Halifax Harriers, for one season; and then his old mas

*"The Post and the Paddock." Hunting Edition.

ter, Mr. Hodgson, beckoned him to his side, as first whip and kennelhuntsman to the Holderness: and the memorable pair were in their third season when "Nimrod" arrived at Beverley with his notebook, and watched their proceedings from the back of "Little Shamrock." Few men had such a country to work in: gentlemen and yeomen all fox-preservers to a man, and looking on

"The green gorse in Dringhoe that waves,"

with as much rapture as a Greek regarded the laurel-groves of Apollo; and the pair showed sport worthy of it. One season, they hunted four days a week with thirty-six couple of hounds, and killed thirty-seven brace of foxes; and towards the close of another, after ten weeks of frost and snow, they hunted nineteen days, and added twenty noses, after splendid runs, to their stable-door array.

But Will shall tell of his last day there himself. "My last day and last run in Holderness," he writes, "was on May 3rd, 1837. The meet was at Water Priory, the seat of Lord Muncaster. We went twelve miles to cover, and were there at five o'clock, and found directly. We were at him, on and off, for twelve hours, under a burning sun, and then pulled him down at five P.M. ; and we knew him to be the same fox we had dusted twice before, on account of one of his thighs having the appearance of being clipped. So I think seventeen hours astride of pigskin, in one day, made a very good wind-up of my career in Holderness." "And so say all of us," the men of Holderness will reply.

The next season-1837-38-found Will the successor to John Wilson, and installed at Knavesmire Gate, within a stone's-throw of Bill Scott (who kept a special bottle of raspberry-vinegar for him in his cellarette), as huntsman to the York and Ainsty; and, after shifting thence with the hounds to the White Horse, and latterly to Acomb House, he finished sixteen seasons more in Yorkshire, under the successive masterships of Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Creyke, and Mr. Bateman, and counting Tom Oxtoby, Ben Boothroyd, and John Hall among his pupils. Rosebud and Lollypop were his favourite Ainsty nags, and the former carried him for twelve, and the latter for eleven seasons; while Trouncer, Triumph, and Traveller ran to head in many a rare thing from Askham Bogs or the Wild Man. Twenty-six brace of noses constituted the spoils of his best season with this pack, which furnished him with the pet run of his life. They found at Askham Bogs, and killed, after four hours and ten minutes, near Anghram, in the presence of only seven or eight out of three hundred; and some even of that devoted band had to leave their horses and finish on foot. After the close of the season of 1852-53, Sir Charles Slingsby became master; and as he decided to hunt the hounds himself, Will retired: and a purse of £1,300 from the gentlemen of the hunt, part of which was invested in building a house for him near Acomb, was the munificent parting keepsake. The inscription on the door-tablet reflects, in a few well-chosen words, the owner's own cheery words to us, as we last sat under its roof— "There never was such a well-used man by hunting gentlemen as I have been." As regards accidents, he has hardly so fair a tale to tell. He has had, in fact, flesh-rents innumerable; three thigh

wrenches; and all his ribs laid bare on the right side, up to the breast-bone. His left arm has been broken once, his collar-bone twice; his right shoulder has been put out; and, worse than all, he has had a slight fracture of the skull above the left eye, in consequence of his horse catching in a sheep-net. Time has, however, come with healing wings in each instance, and has left no traces on his wiry ten-stonetwo frame, of these highly-varied chances of war.

Retirement was not, however, Will's forte; and it was not to be wondered, that one who was still as active as ever should have pined for the cover-side. In August, 1855, the opportunity presented itself; and he succeeded Tom Salmon as huntsman to the Hurworth. With the exception of the country on both sides the river Tees, which separates Yorkshire and Durham, this almosthereditary hunting-ground of the Wilkinson family is of a stiff, "uphill and down dale" character. Still, the foxes generally hang to the river-side, which can be reached in half-an-hour from nearly all the covers, and point away down a good scenting country for Yarm. Fighting Cocks Whin, which includes from eighteen to twenty acres of good gorse, and can bear sifting six or seven times in the course of a season, is their crack meet, and High Worsell, Elton, Deighton, Sockburn, Entercommon, and The Kennels, rank next in estimation. The hunting-days are Tuesday and Saturday; and about twenty-seven couple of hounds, six couple of them generally constituting the new entries, are kept in the kennels at Neasham Abbey. At present, Commodore, by Cruiser out of Fair Maid, and Countess and Careless, part of a rare litter of three dogs and two bitches, by the Badsworth Whynot out of the Hurworth Fury, are foremost among the best; and the kennel has also a good deal of the Yarborough and Sir Tatton Sykes blood in it. On an average they kill ten brace of foxes a season, and run fifteen brace to ground. Their best run since Will came was, we think, in the season 1856-57, when they found at Weldberry, crossed the Whirk, past Appleton-on-Whirk to Picton Plantations, through High Worsel Gorse, past Kirk Levington, leaving Yarm to the left, through Yarm Wood, across the river Leven, and killed him at Thurnaby, near South Stockton. Distance, eighteen miles from point to point, and time two hours and twenty minutes.

And there Will lives, never caring to leave his favourites, except when York August Meeting comes round, and he goes home to Acomb for a week. Each afternoon he may be seen, in his green coat and brown gaiters, on the race-course, refreshing himself, Yorkshire-fashion, with a long critical look at the two-year-olds, and comparing notes with his old hunting friends. It was all owing to him that we completely lost the grand finish, last year, between Amsterdam and Intercidona, for the great North of England Biennial. Seated on the grass near the bend, in rapt attention, we did not deign even to look round as Goater and Challoner fought it out head and head within a few yards of us; for Will was deep in the history of his Holderness days, and just killing his fox in the German Ocean,