8 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



elder brother George, who had a fine hunting estabhsh- 

 ment with Mr. Henry Hall in Northamptonshire, with 

 about twelve first-class hunters, and a household second 

 to none in the neighbourhood. The other two brothers 

 had their establishment at Tring for the Vale of 

 Aylesbury. About the year 1851 Samuel Baker and 

 Cheslyn Hall shifted their quarters to Aylesbury, build- 

 ing excellent loose-boxes for twenty hunters, fitted up 

 with every convenience, with groom's house, harness- 

 and saddle-rooms, boiling-houses, and everything the 

 most fastidious Master of Horse could require. They 

 took up their abode at the White Hart — then the most 

 noted house in the Midlands — and ordered rooms, in 

 addition to their own, for the Hon. Robert Grimston, 

 Johnny Bell, and the well-known steeplechase rider, Jem 

 Mason. They and their guests lived luxuriously on 

 rare viands and the most noted vintage wines : if there 

 was one thing more than another they prided themselves 

 on, it was the glorious port of the vintages 1820, '26, and 

 *34. These gentlemen — Messrs. Hall and Baker — were 

 at the head of every subscription for promoting sport, 

 agricultural shows, charitable or other useful works in 

 the neighbourhood ; yet such was their recklessness and 

 extravagance that old-fashioned people looked askance 

 and said an end would soon come to this extraor- 

 dinary expenditure. At the end of the hunting season 

 about twenty of their horses were sent to Tattersall's, 

 where they realized what were then immense prices, 

 several making 300, 350, and 400 guineas each. 



After these gentry had kept the game alive at Ayles- 

 bury for some years, it was announced that Mr. Baker 



