3acf? /Il>u9tev6 141 



for the refinement of his manners, and ladies ahvays 

 voted him ' delightful.' But in the hunting-field he flung 

 politeness to the winds, and the language in which he 

 blew up ' thrusters ' who pressed too close upon his 

 hounds was sultry to a degree, and sometimes passed 

 the bounds allowed even to an angry Master of Fox- 

 hounds. As, for example, when he went for a lame 

 clergyman who frequently came out for a day's hunting. 

 ' There goes that damned parson. He's as deformed in 

 his mind as he is in his body. He always rides over 

 my hounds. The devil won't have him at any price.' 

 xAnd all this, remember, within hearing of the unfor- 

 tunate parson, who may have been a nuisance, but 

 hardly deserved such a coarse and sweeping anathema. 



But people forgave handsome Jack Musters these 

 little failings, for, with all his faults, he was a fine, manly 

 English sportsman, frank and generous, with a big heart 

 encased in as magnificent a body as was ever given to 

 man. And when he died at Annesley Park on the 8th 

 of September 1849, in the 73rd year of his age, he left 

 more mourning friends than many a better man has had 

 to lament his loss. 



