300 THE WARWICKSHIRE HUNT. [1867 



theuce over tlie Kilsby Tunnel, and perfectly straight in the direction of 

 Market Harliorough to within three or four miles of Husband's Bosworth. I 

 was riding two of the very best horses in England,* but got a very bad start, 

 and did not see much of the first and best part of the run, in which the late 

 Mr. Stanley, of Leamington, and Squire Chamberlapie, of Stoney Thorpe, 

 held the pride of jdace. When I got on Corsica, f Lord Willoughby's well- 

 known bay mare, I passed plenty of good men who had had enough. I 

 remember passing the late Mr. Bolton King, who liad only one horse out, as 

 Avas his custom, and I asked him which way the hounds were. He pointed 

 forward, and said, " I could go on, but I will not risk killing my mare," like 

 a good sportsman as he was. I jumped the last fence that was jumped that 

 day, and, like a silly young fool, decided to go to the Market Harboroiigh 

 ])all that night instead of going home with the hounds, which would hav& 

 been, of course, the right thing to do. I asked Mr. Lucy to leave word at the 

 Lodge at Compton that I was not coming back, and he passed there and left 

 my message with old Yincent, the stud-groom, at eleA^en o'clock at night. 

 When I got to the ball, in Lord Melgund's dress clothes, I found I was not 

 half such a hero as I expected to l)e, and the mare was so stifE next day that 

 I made up my mind there and then never to sleep out again, a vow which has 

 been religiously kept. We did not kill the good fox, or it would have been 

 the finest run that ever Avas seen. Mr. Lucy was riding Groldfinder, and, of 

 coiu'se, was there ; but I cannot rememlier who else got to the end. — 

 W. R. V. (From the Banhury Guardian.) 



* My old horse Stonewall .Tacksou was well kuowii at (Jsford. I ran him against 

 Captaiu " Johnny " Frederick's The Monk in the ^\^lip at the Christ Church Grind, but 

 was outpaced. He would jump a gate backwards and forwai'ds. I always kept him for 

 the foxhounds, but one day the young fellows were talking about riding, so I said I 

 would take him out next day with the harriers, as my co-master, Mr. Philip Wroughton, 

 could not go out, and I had to hunt them. We were a long time tiuding, and my old 

 horse got quite disgusted, and would not look at a fence. I handed the horn to Mr. 

 Algernon Turnor (who had a capital run with a hare we called ''the Witch," as she 

 always swam the Cuddesdon liver), and took him home, as I thought he was amiss» 

 The next week I took him down to Mr. Arthur Pryor's, of Hylands, near Chelmsford, 

 and he carried me first rate in an hour's run over the Roothings of Essex. I remember 

 the late Mr. Anthony Trollope, the novelist, spoke to me in this run, and said : '" You 

 can't go there, young man ! " I said, '' That depends on the man and the horse," and 

 over I went. 1 remember making a similar reply to the great Jem Mason in the- 

 Wiuslow country. I got a good deal wiser as I grew older ; then I was only a cheeky 

 Oxford undergraduate. I once tried to follow Mr. W. H. Foster on his celebrated 

 chesnut hoi'se. He took me over a bridle gate, very high — Stonewall broke the top- 

 bar ; then over a stile, into a road, and out the other side. Then over some new and 

 very stiff rails, across a ridge and furrow field. Stonewall hit them, and I pulled up, 

 and said I would not have any more. It was no disgrace, as Melton well knows, to be 

 defeated by Mr. Foster and his chesnut horse. He had that one and a bay horse called 

 Comet, and a little brown horse he called his hack. They would jump anything, and 

 the chesnut horse was about the fastest hunter in England. He was timed to do four 

 miles in eight minutes. Mr. Arthur V. Pryor had an extraordinary ugly chesnut horse, 

 well known at Oxford, and afterwards at Melton, called Double First. With the 

 exception of Jupp, bought by Sir Charles Mordaunt from Mr. E. W. Tritton, and Jack 

 King's old ohesnut horse, he was the biggest jumper I ever saw. — W. R, Y, 



t Lord Willoughby's Corsica was by Corsair. She was a great, big, three-parts- 

 bred mare, and was for many years the best known hunter in Warwickshire. Lord 

 Willoughby has st'll one or two of her stock. I think he showed a g-anddanghter at 

 the Pytchley Show in 1895, aud was commended. — ^W. R. Y. 



