WANTED — A MASTER. I 45 



drawal fell upon the ears of the assembled members of 

 the hunt they could not at once hit upon any county 

 man likely to fill the breach. Mr. Perry Watlington 

 was spoken of ; but he, perhaps, was more interested 

 just then in the Yeomanry, and he had hardly 

 worshipped at the shrine of Diana with sufficient fervour 

 to make it likely that he would care to fill the 

 vacancy. There was Mr. Loftus Arkwright, to be sure, 

 living at home ; but he was the fourth son ; and ample as 

 were the means of the "Squarson" master, the amount 

 of the youngest son's portion might not be sufficient 

 to induce him to spend a good deal of it in finding fun 

 for others. The three elder sons had settled elsewhere, 

 and it was useless to expect that any of them would 

 come forward to head the Essex Hunt. The Hunt 

 could, of course, invite candidates through the medium of 

 advertisement ; but the home counties are, perhaps, less 

 tolerant of strangers than are those further afield. More- 

 over, the countrv had not forgotten that even so "-ood 

 a sportsman as Mr. Henley Greaves had not been 

 an unqualified success ; and so they shrank from inviting 

 the co-operation of a stranger. In this case, however, 

 as in many others, time came to the rescue. Mr. 

 Joseph Arkwright's resignation was followed in less than 

 10 



