JACK PARKER. 195 



huntsman willy-nilly have their pedestal. Now I come back 

 to my point, that it is possible to over-estimate the hero in 

 the world of venery just as in any other walk of life. There is 

 no reason that because a man is paid to don a picturesque 

 garb, has good cattle bought for him to ride, and possibly 

 rides them well, that he should have allotted to him any 

 higher pinnacle than the unassuming yeoman who rides just 

 as well, and perhaps has a much more disinterested love for 

 the sport. The huntsman is by popular consent a hero, 

 however. Jack Parker was such in his day, but never so 

 great as now his dust is mingled with that of many another 

 good sportsman. That he earned his position and his 

 reputation will be shown by the anecdotes and data to be 

 given. 



Jack Parker deserved his pinnacle because he was pre- 

 eminently a sportsman, and a huntsman afterwards. The 

 two terms may seem synonymous, but they are not essen- 

 tially so. I do not say that most huntsmen are not fond 

 of the chase apart from the fact that it is their livelihood, 

 but I know that in time many of them sink their 

 true sporting instincts and become merely professionals, who 

 feel relieved when their day's duty is at an end and they 

 are on their way back to the kennels, and who rarely follow 

 hounds when they have laid aside the horn. Surely in such 

 cases there is a lack of the enthusiasm born of sincerity ! 

 But Jack Parker was essentially an enthusiast just as he was 

 a born huntsman — it is said the genus must be born like 

 poets — and what is more he was equally a born character 

 and wit. Jorrocks, it will be remembered, gave it as his 

 opinion, " all huntsmen are 'eaven born or hidiots, there's no 

 medium." There was an individuality about the man, a dry, 

 natural, unforced humour which Bobbie Dawson and his 

 coterie never had. The latter clique were oftener laughed at 

 than laughed with — there is a marked difference. Parker 

 knew his power of creating a laugh, and was fully cognisant 

 of the fact that he was something of a hero, and the under- 

 lying current in many of the stories told regarding him would 

 lead us to suppose that he aped a little the ignoramus who 



