148 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



after a run of twelve miles. He then went back to 

 Broadway, twenty miles, and from thence to Chelten- 

 ham. Not contented with this, by way of finishing the 

 day he went badger-hunting at night in Queen's Wood 

 and West Wood, adding some eight or ten miles to his 

 day's work ; and in the course of the time he must have 

 gone over upwards of eighty miles of ground. Of what 

 use would a railway have been to such an untiring 

 specimen of human nature? In 1851, 'he shuffled off 

 his mortal coil,' and was ' earthed' in Charlton Church- 

 yard. 



Samuel Cornock, frequently announced as " Mister 

 Samuel Cornock of North Nibley, near Berkeley, hi the 

 county of Gloucester," is another of those persons in 

 whom the love of hunting prevails above all other con- 

 siderations. Sammy boasts of no aristocratic parentage, 

 his father having been a weaver, an occupation which 

 prevails extensively in the clothing districts of the 

 west. At an early age he was apt to get off self- 

 hunting with the hounds kept by the late Earl 

 Berkeley, when they were in their home country, for 

 which insubordination his father was wont to hunt him 

 round the room with a stick; but the earl, noticing the 

 boy, often gave him a shilling, which had the effect of 

 a peace-offering with his parents. He attends the Earl 

 Fitzhardinge's hounds when in the Berkeley country, 

 but has seldom gone to Cheltenham ; and when they 

 are absent, ' he hunts with the duke ; ' his costume is 

 the coat of whichever hunt is honoured by his presence 

 >a present of course from one of the members; the 

 skirts of which he preserves with great diligence 

 and care by fastening them in front to prevent their 

 being splashed ; a white ' tile ' surmounts the whole. 

 He mentions having gone, some years since, to meet the 

 Duke of Beaufort's hounds at Draycott Park, more 

 than eighteen miles 'to covert.' They had a capital 

 run with their first fox, which they killed, and they ran 

 a second a considerable time when, having ten miles to 

 trudge home, he left them. This, he says, was the 



