398 Ikinas of tbe 1f3untin(j«jfiel6 



in Hampshire. His average for years was forty brace, 

 and he generally killed a May fox. Naturally, so keen 

 and liberal a sportsman was extremely popular. He was 

 very firm with the field, but never forgot that he was a 

 gentleman. By his hunt-servants he was idolised, and he 

 showed what a generous interest he took in them by 

 leaving every one that had ever been in his service a 

 handsome annuity at his death. 



The second brother, Henry, was also a sportsman, but 

 of a somewhat different type. He was ' in ' with the 

 Regency set, was one of the Prince's intimates in fact, 

 and as a coachman had few, if any, superiors even 

 among his fellow-members of the famous Benson Driving 

 Club. At his fine country-seat, Marham House, near 

 Downham in Norfolk, he kept both stag-hounds and 

 harriers on a scale commensurate with his large income 

 and liberal tastes. 



The third brother, Frederick Read Orme, served for 

 some time in the i6th Light Dragoons, and on his re- 

 tirement lived first at Adderbury in Oxfordshire, and 

 then at Benham Park, Bedfordshire, a mansion formerly 

 occupied by the Margrave of Anspach, who married the 

 widow of William, Lord Craven. In 1835, Frederick 

 Villebois succeeded Thomas (' Gentleman ') Smith, as 

 Master of the Craven hounds. There were thus three 

 brothers at one and the same time Masters of Hounds, 

 and I believe there is no similar instance on record. 

 Ben Foote came from Mr Drake as huntsman to Mr 

 Frederick Villebois, and his first whip was John Fiddler, 

 who long kept the King's Arms at Newbury, and whose 

 son Charles was for some time Boniface of the ' Old Bell ' 

 in Leicester Square. Like his two elder brothers, Frederick 

 was a very rich man, and hunted the Craven country in 



