i88 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



Palace fame. The inner man was refreshed, and gruel 

 given to our gallant steeds ; and, after resting half an 

 hour, I trotted off along the turnpike road, sixteen miles 

 to Aylesbury ; the hounds took a cross country route to 

 Mentmore, and, like myself, reached home about 7.30, 

 having ridden at least fifty miles. 



The only other class of hunting worthy of record 

 beside fox-hunting and the stag, is that with harriers. 

 It is a charming sight to see a pack of these little 

 "currant jelly" dogs, feathering away under a hedge- 

 row, hunting their hare on her exact track, and filling 

 the air with their lovely music — for no hounds have such 

 music, and give tongue like harriers. I have enjoyed 

 good sport with the late Sir Robert Harvey's and Mr. 

 Harding Cox's harriers ; but for the real essence of 

 good sport with harriers the late Lord Lonsdale's was 

 the pack to follow. 



The late Earl of Lonsdale kept a pack of harriers 

 at the Harcourt Arms Hotel, by the Tring Station on 

 the London and North-Western Railway, about thirty 

 miles from town. The hounds were drafted from Mr. 

 Drake's and the Old Berkeley foxhounds, and a few 

 from Baron Rothschild's staghounds ; and these, with 

 some large-framed harriers, made a rare combination 

 of speedy dogs, and afforded capital sport on the off- 

 days of the stag and foxhound meets. After a time 

 his lordship experienced a great scarcity of hares in the 

 Vale, and he was advised to bring down from his 

 Cumberland estates some wild foxes, and try what he 

 could do with them, on those days when no hare could 

 be found. The " bag foxes," though they afforded 



