92 TALES OF THE TURF AND THE CHASE. 



ping Ongar or Bicester pack. Then, of course, there was the 

 usual contingent of country doctors : usual, I say, for the medi- 

 cal profession gravitates naturally towards equestrianism. If a 

 country doctor rides at all, you may be sure he rides well, and is 

 well mounted, moreover. There was also a very boisterous and 

 hard-riding maltster, who had acquired a considerable reputation 

 in the district, a fair sprinkling of snobs, one or two grooms and 

 stable cads. There was also an illustrious novelist of the day, 

 the guest of Sir Cloudesley Spanker, and Sir Cloudesley Span- 

 ker, Bart., himself 



We had drawn Branksome Bushes and the result was a blank. 

 Local sportsmen commenced to be prolific of suggestions. 

 There was Henham Gorse, for instance, and two gentlemen 

 asseverated most positively, upon intelligence which was indispu- 

 tably true, that there was a fox in that quarter. Another noble 

 sportsman, who prided himself especially on his local knowledge 

 pressed upon Jem Pike the necessity of turning his attention 

 next to the Enderby Woods, to all of which admonitions, how- 

 ever, Mr. Pike resolutely turned a deaf ear. These are among 

 the difficulties which the huntsman of a subscription pack has to 

 encounter or withstand. Every Nimrod who pays his sovereign 

 or so a year to the support of the hounds considers he has a 

 right to a voice in their management. Marvellous is the sensi- 

 tiveness of the amateur sportsman. It is a well-established fact, 

 that you cannot more grievously wound or insult the feelings of 

 the gentleman who prides himself upon his acquaintance with 

 horses than by impugning the accuracy of his judgment in any 

 point of equine detail. Hint to your friend, who is possessed with 

 the idea that he is an authority upon the manners and customs of 

 foxes in general, and upon those of any one neighbcurhood in 

 particular, that there exists a chance of his fallibility, and he will 

 resent the insinuation as a mortal slight. Jem Pike had his duty 

 to do to the pack and to his employers, and he steadfastly 

 refused to be guided or misguided by amateur advice. So, at 

 Jem's sweet will, we jogged on from Branksome Bushes to 

 Jarvis Spinney, and at Jarvis Spinney the object of our quest 

 was obtained. 



'Tis a pretty sight, the find and the throw off. You see the ■ 

 gorse literally alive with the hounds, their sterns flourishing- 

 above its surface. Something has excited them, and there ' the 

 beauties ' go, leaping over each other's backs. Then issues a 

 shrill kind of whimper ; in a moment one hound challenges, and 



