Ube Dillebois 399 



grand style, entirely at his own expense. His hounds and 

 hunt-servants were despatched to more distant meets in 

 a huge four-horse van, which was probably the largest 

 vehicle on wheels in existence. On his death in 185 1, 

 he bequeathed his hounds and £1^00 to the Craven 

 Hunt. 



But better known, at any rate to the present genera- 

 tion, than any one of the three I have mentioned, was 

 Henry Villebois, the surviving son of the first-named 

 Henry, who, on the death of his father in 1847, suc- 

 ceeded to the Norfolk estate, and whose portrait graces 

 these pages. Henry, the second, was ' blooded ' by his 

 uncle John Truman's famous huntsman Dick Foster, 

 who had no superior in his profession among his con- 

 temporaries. From his boyhood Henry's greatest delight 

 had been to sit at Dick Foster's feet in his uncle's Hamp- 

 shire kennels, and drink in the words of wisdom and 

 experience which fell from the lips of that crafty veteran. 

 ' He studied the hound-book,' says a writer in Bailys 

 Magazine, ' with as much earnestness as a candidate for 

 the Civil Service would do Hallam's " Middle Asfes." or 

 Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations," and, with the excep- 

 tion of Mr Williamson, brother-in-law of Lord Zetland, 

 who, when at a private tutor's, used to make his fag hear 

 him go through and cross-examine him in " The Lamb- 

 ton Kennel-Book," a more enthusiastic lover of the 

 Chase was probably never known.' 



In 1849 Mr Henry Villebois began hunting on his 

 own account, by buying the Vale of White Horse Pack 

 from the committee, and adding to them the Hertford- 

 shire, which he had also purchased. It was during his 

 mastership of the V.W.H. that the following extraordin- 

 ary incident happened, which is thus described by the 



