A GOOD BAG 297 



Shooting in Norfolk is proverbially good, and his was 

 no exception to the general rule. I shot with him several 

 years, mostly having excellent sport. A party of six 

 guns, including his son and an old gentleman, neither of 

 them very expert in the use of the deadly weapon, we 

 bagged three hundred pheasants, besides hares and 

 rabbits and a woodcock or two. I once killed on the 

 farm which he kept in hand for the use of his stud 

 twenty couple of wild ducks, and left off at three o'clock 

 in the afternoon, not for the want of more to shoot at, 

 but being satisfied with the number bagged. 



He cared little for what he ate or drank, so that the 

 meats were overcooked in order to provide gravy for the 

 dumplings, which were delicious. He carved his own 

 joints ; but even so, so rapidly did he eat that he invari- 

 ably finished long before anyone else at the table. 

 Indeed, he is said to have died from eating suddenly too 

 hearty a meal a more charitable and more likely cause 

 of death than that to which, with little authority, his end 

 has been by some attributed. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



CAMBRIDGESHIRE TEIALS. 



Trials at Woodyates and Shipton, and performances in the race of the 

 following : Allbrook, Hobbie Noble, Weatherbound, Catch 'em Alive, 

 Sultan, and FoxhallFoxhall's wonderful victory Compared with 

 Tristan and Iroquois Need of a ' stayer ' in the Cambridgeshire 

 Value of trials Story of the fraud as to weight in Catch 'em Alive' s 

 year Jockeys in trials Jockeys and ' stable-boys ' in the saddle 

 contrasted Instances and their teaching. 



FEW of my readers, I hope, and still fewer of those who 

 are interested in the turf, will grudge me a little space to 



