1866J ROBEET WOREALL. 287 



kennels for three weeks. 1 had charge of them, with a 

 boy to help. I went two days before the hounds to boil 

 and get ready. I walked out, and not one hound slipped 

 me. Stevens, Morris, and Jack Hicks used to drive the 

 old white-legged mare and cub-hunt two days, then home 

 for the other three ; they used to come on Sunday evenings, 

 and back on Tuesday after hunting, I well remember a 

 bitch named Brazen going off when in whelp ; she was 

 missing several days. One morning she turned up at the 

 kennels for some food, and she had whelped. Stevens gave 

 me a basket and a pair of couples to follow her and see 

 where she went. She went over Pittern Hill, past 

 Combroke Lodge, for Enoch the keeper's house ; here I 

 lost sight of her. At last, after searching about, I found 

 her in a large rabbit hole with eight or nine puppies. I 

 brought her and all the puppies with me, and no doubt 

 Brilliant, by Tarquin, entered in 1848, was one of them 

 Priestess whelped underneath the bellows in the black- 

 smith's shop at the kennels. Poor old John Woodjfield 

 went into the shop, and Priestess caught hold of his apron 

 when we removed her puppies. I got into the hole 

 to pull them out for poor old Dick Hemmings to jDut 

 into a basket. He said, 'How many more are there, boy? ' 

 When we counted them there were eighteen, the most I 

 ever knew ; I have known one have seventeen. 



" I was only fourteen when put on to ride second horse 

 for Stevens. One clay we were cubhunting at Shuck - 

 burgh, I was sent back on a mare called Chance to tell 

 Jack Hicks to come on and not wait about for a hound 

 which was back. AVhen I got up to the hounds again the 

 mare ran away with me, and jumped a gate right into the 

 pack. Your father thought I was not man enough for the 

 job, and must wait another 3'ear till I got stronger. That 

 year, or, at all events when I was fifteen, the late Mr. 

 Graham, of Yardley, was passing through Kineton, and he 

 engaged me as carriage and covert boy. At seventeen 

 years of age I came back to Kineton to ride second horse 

 to Jones. I rode for him in 1853, 1854, and 1855. 



