THE RADNOR 



ness. Valentine was away and Mr. David Sharpe was acting M. F. H., 

 carrying the horn himself with a couple of professional whippers-in and one 

 amateur, Mr. Harden. Hounds moved off promptly and began drawing 

 along the base of a long wooded range of hills. They were under absolute 

 control and although working vsader than any English hounds I've ever seen, 

 they seemed to be perfectly biddable and were handled m much the same 

 manner as you would handle an English pack. 



"We worked along for perhaps two hours without finding, and then as 

 we heard the Lima hounds running a mile or so away, Mr. Sharpe moved 

 off to another portion of the country. Hounds came to the hom as well 

 as you could ask for. Presently, we met Mr. Mather with about twenty 

 couples of the Brandywine, and for the next hour both packs worked 

 together, the two huntsmen riding side by side. In drawing, there was 

 very little to choose between the two lots, both of them working eagerly 

 and well. 



"At last we found; the fox was holloaed away by one of the Brandywine 

 whips and away we all went. I don't know which hounds found first, — 

 both claimed the honor and I question if either huntsman knew, — anyway, 

 both lots of hounds came to the holloa on the jump and a prettier sight I 

 never saw. Forty-two couples in all, running well and evenly together, and 

 here again neither seemed to have the better of it. Once fairly started, what 

 a gallop we did have ! Scent breast-high, hounds running like blazes and just 

 screeching at him. The going was something appalling, as greasy and slip- 

 pery as possible, and as I rode at the first fence, — and let me tell you the 

 fences in this country are nothing to jeer at, — I felt as 'Brooksby' did in 

 'The Best of the Fun'; I wondered who would ride the old mare at home 

 in Lincoln. But the honor of Middlesex was at stake, so at it we went and 

 the little mare sailed over it as clean as a whistle. By jingo! it was grand 

 for the next half hour, the Brandywine huntsman, Picton, and I side by side, 

 — he with a monocle in his eye, — though how he keeps it there Heaven 

 only knows. Presently we came to a brook or, rather, a small creek. It was 

 half frozen over, but hounds kept on, so in we went, horses splashing the icy 

 water all over us, into a little covert on the other side, where hounds suddenly 



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