1893] LORD LONSDALE'S REFORM. 255 



his brows, and looking round in vain for "the rascally 



boy." 



Captain Smith and Lord Melgund were once riding 

 hacks, as they had been lamed by falls. They saw the 

 second horsemen, led by Billing, Lord Dupplin's man, 

 taking a sort of bee-line across country. At last one of 

 them rode at a gate into the road where the two well- 

 known steeplechase riders were standing, and smashed 

 every bar of it. Still, there are plenty of good, trusty, 

 and steady second horsemen. 



The late Captain Benyon told us a good story of second 

 horsemen. He heard them talking together one day with 

 the Bicester. One said to the others: "My guv'nor will 

 be wanting his lunch about this time, but the worst of it 

 is I never can find him." " Oh," said another, " I alias 

 knows my old bloke." Captain Benyon watched the man to 

 see whom he went up to. Sure enough it was Lord North. 



December 21st, Birdingbury Hall. — Cold, with snow on the ground in 

 places. Found the second fox at Ladbroke Gorse, got away at once, and 

 ran very fast towards the Welsh Road, but turned short back, and ran 

 along the Vale and up the hill between Priors Hardwiek and Boddingt-on, 

 down into the Vale, beyond and across it, leaving Priors Marston on the left, 

 up to the hills, where the pack threw up on the cold ploughs. Time up to 

 there forty minutes of the best, with only one check. Hit it ofE at last, and 

 hunted it up to the foot of Shuckburgh Hill, where I thought it best to stop 

 the pack, as all the earths would he open. 



" Rusticus Expectans " in the Field: 



This brings me to a first-class day on Thursday, December 21st, at 

 Birdingbury Hall. I am obliged to have recourse to the account of a 

 kind friend, one of the heavy brigade, writing under the pseudonym of 

 " Historicus," as I could not get out. He seems thoroughly inspired with 

 the ardour of the chase and the enthusiasm of the day's sjjort, and even 

 breaks into poetry, which I know you do not like. Hounds could not have 

 picked a finer line, and it will l^e one of the red-letter days of the year, 

 hounds having really run on a first-rate scent. My good friend's pen rather 

 plunges at starting, but he settles down at the finish, and just goes nicely up 

 to the bridle : 



"A representative company assembled at the favourite fixture. Twenty 

 couples supplied the fighting strength of the lady pack. They posed them- 

 selves gracefully on tlie green sward, and looked, as they suljsequently 

 proved themselves to bo, in the pink of condition. There is a quiet dignity 

 in the features of these Warwickshix-e hounds, so often associated in the 

 human subject with conscious power and force of character. [Gently on, 



