THE RADNOR 



stopped. For an instant there was silence and then a sudden snarling told 

 us that 'Mr. Charley' had breathed his last. Of course Mr. Sharpe and 

 Picton both claimed that their hounds had done the trick. Frankly, I couldn't 

 tell; neither could any one else. It was one of those short, sharp bursts with 

 no checks that just 'bust* a fox, though I wish there had been checks so that 

 I might have seen the pack at work better. Miss Dobson had the brush 

 and Miss Mather the mask, and then we separated; Mr. Mather to go 

 home to his kennels and we to the Radnor clubhouse for a bite. 



" After luncheon, Mr. Sharpe took me out to the kennels to see the hounds, 

 of which they have about forty couples ; some ten pure English and the rest 

 cross-bred. ' Sportsman ' a Genesee Valley hound, is their best stallion 

 and is as fine a type of English hound as you'd wish to see. The majority 

 of the pack are big, rangy, light-colored hounds, perhaps twenty-four inches 

 at the shoulder, with rather an American cast of head and body, but most 

 of them fairly straight, with good legs and feet and lots of quality. They 

 impress me as light all over, but perhaps they are not. Certainly they do 

 their work well. " 



Such is the impression the Radnor made in 1 904 on a visiting sportsman. 

 Today they are larger, have a good deal more bone and show, in many 

 ways, a strong infusion of English blood. The Radnor dog-hounds weigh as 

 much, stand as high — if not higher — at the shoulder, and have as much 

 bone as any English hounds. 



Will Davis, their present huntsman, is an Englishman born and bred, 

 and has hunted English hounds all his life, being late huntsman to the Pem- 

 brokeshire. He naturally had a pretty strong prejudice against American 

 hounds when he first came to the Radnor, but he told one of the authors 

 recently that he was forced to admit that the Radnor hounds, as they are to- 

 day, are very hard to beat in their work. " When I first took them," he said, 

 " they were wild as hawks. They began hunting when they got ready and 

 left off when they liked. But I stuck to it, and presently their manners im- 

 proved. Any hounds can be taught manners if the poor brutes only know 

 what you want them to do. 1 got a terrier from England, — and a good 'un, 

 — and every time they ran a fox to ground I had him out if it was possible. 



155 



