HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS. 23 



on looking back to those days, they were by no 

 means the least enjoyable times with the Essex 

 Union ; horses were not of the best, neither 

 tvere the hounds, but to Captain White bad 

 borses made no difference ; he was one of the 

 finest horsemen I ever met with, and I believe 

 he could have ridden a hurdle across country ; 

 brutes no one else would have dreamt of tack- 

 ling behaved as angels in his perfect hands. 

 One of his sayings was, " Give me my own spurs 

 and another man's horse," but when he was 

 sailing over a country on " Tommy Dodd," or 

 his favourite little grey, it was a sight worth 

 going a mile or two to see. He used to go from 

 covert to covert at a tremendous pace, and on a 

 bad scenting day he would call out " If we can't 

 hunt a fox you shall hunt me." He made no 

 secret of the fact of the hounds keeping kim. 



I shall always feel grateful to Captain 

 White for many a hint as to the best and 

 shortest way of riding to hounds, and his 

 lessons I have never forgotten. One was, 

 always to keep down wind of hounds, and 

 another thing, it was a great advantage to me 

 to be allowed when hounds ran to follow him, 

 the understanding between us being, that if I 

 rolled into a ditch, one of the hunt servants 

 would set me straight. Captain White had a 

 selection of the choicest language one is often 

 privileged to hear. One day he was a bit put 

 out with the second whip : he ended up a whole 

 string of abuse with " I wish you were dead, 

 and it would give me the greatest pleasure to 

 go to your funeral." 



