2o8 The Farmers — Fox Preservers, &c. 



Marston on the right, at a great pace. Very near 

 the village I had an easy fall. Mr. Harry 

 Everard looked over the hedge ; I said, " It will 

 do ! " *' No, thank you," he answered decidedly; 

 " Beers is down and you have been down, I will 

 have none of it !" 



Beers' horse, Hunting Horn, with the saddle 

 flaps flying, was going down the field like 

 Pegasus, verifying his nomenclature at every 

 stride by carrying the horn without the 

 Huntsman ! 



Hounds ran on over the Catesby doubles, along 

 the vale, over the brook and nearly to Staverton 

 Wood, when a flock of sheep brought them to a 

 check ; Beers came up on the whipper-in's horse, 

 and thought we had changed foxes, and there 

 ended a very severe run. Mr. Vincent Shepherd 

 rode w^ell on a chesnut horse which his father 

 bred and sold to the Duke of Grafton after 

 that performance. Lord Camperdown and Mr. 

 Edward Knott used to go w^ell on that side. 



At the time this narrative commences and for 

 twenty years afterwards there was only one fox 

 in three compared with the present time ; a 

 mangey fox was then seldom seen or heard of. 



A fox-hunting farmer said to me last autumn, 

 *' I am completely eaten up with foxes." 



