Ube M^nns of Mynnstap sei 



we came to a small brook with boggy banks, and, 

 knowing my horse wanted a lead, I followed my father, 

 and " woe worth the hour, and woe worth the day," he 

 fell, and I jumped on him ! I draw a veil over what 

 followed. My horse was so lame that with difficulty I 

 got him home ; my father's scarcely lame at all ; in a 

 week mine was quite sound, but his took to running 

 joint-oil and died. The second incident was our 

 meeting old Walker, to whom my father said, " A first- 

 rate run." " I know it," said he ; " I was on the road, 

 and heard them running ' great guns ' over the Old 

 Hall." I never saw Walker again, and the next I heard 

 of him was his death and burial on the day the hounds 

 had the run of the season." The Major adds another run, 

 with a characteristic anecdote of our M.F.H. " When the 

 hounds were running in the Garden country, they 

 crossed the Aldersey brook ; up to this point my father 

 had been quite in front on a good horse called Telegram ; 

 he would not, however, face water, and my father knew 

 it, so he pulled up, and looking round spied his second 

 horseman, to whom he shouted, " Come on, ride him at 

 it." The man did as he was told, and cleared it easily. 

 " Get off," said my father ; he himself jumped off 

 Telegram, crawled on a pole over the brook, and was 

 soon alone with the hounds. " How did Dick get 

 there ? " said Sir Watkin ; and when he was told, out 

 came the handkerchief, and into his mouth it went. 

 My father never heard the last of it." ' 



Charles Payne, who succeeded Walker, had made 

 himself a great name with the Pytchley, and he well 

 sustained his reputation with Sir Watkin Wynn. He 

 was a huntsman of the highest class, and, though 



