THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



quickly and quietly, and was always, by reason of 

 his thoughtfulness and quickness of observation, 

 exactly where he ought to be. From him most 

 whippers-in might well learn a lesson, for how 

 many are constantly to be seen exactly where 

 they ought not to be ! Long had of course the 

 advantage of serving under Philip Payne, a 

 huntsman whose hounds loved and trusted him 

 and flew to his horn or his voice. For ten years 

 Long served as second whipper-in. Then he was 

 promoted, and for eight years more he was first 

 whipper-in, till age obliged Payne to resign. 



For some time before that, Long had frequently 

 hunted the hounds. In his eighteen years as a 

 subordinate he learned a great deal. A whipper-in's 

 place was then a great deal harder than it is now. 

 Even the first whipper-in under the sixth Duke had 

 no second horse, and Long himself related that he 

 rode Milkmaid for seventeen seasons on an average 

 twenty times in each. 



He tells the following story in a letter to a friend. 

 Hounds found in Tarwood, then a much more ex- 

 tensive covert than it is now. If undergraduates of 

 Oxford ever hunt there nowadays, the moderate- 

 sized covert they see, is not the Tarwood that drew 

 their fathers and grandfathers as by a magnet to the 

 covert side. It was an afternoon fox of which Long 

 tells, and the hour was late. The fox was almost 

 beaten, and the earths in Wychwood Forest all open 

 before him. 



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