282 The Post and the Paddock. 



the Oxton Warren country, according to Actczon* he 

 craftily ran five miles after a fox's head, which his 

 second whip, according to orders, had tied to his 

 thong, and finally thrust down a strong head of earths, 

 over which a sneak of a gamekeeper presided. After 

 exacting a solemn promise that the latter would not 

 dig him out, Mr. Musters returned stealthily from 

 Colwick at dark, and found him busy at it with three 

 assistants, and trying " to comb his jacket," as he 

 pleasantly remarked, at intervals, with a long rose 

 brier ! Mr. Hugh Bruce Campbell speaks thus of the 

 " Nottingham Squire's" ridingt in a very spirited 

 memoir : 



" Although one of the most determined riders that 

 ever got across a horse, Mr. Musters was not a grace- 

 ful horseman : he put the saddle too near the chine, 

 and was wont to remark that the saddle could not be 

 too forward for hunting, nor too backward for the 

 road. His mode of getting over a country was pecu- 

 liar, especially during the last twenty-five years that 

 he hunted : he rarely took a leap flying ; he either 

 made his horse jump standing, or he thrust him 

 through the fence ; timber of course he could not so 

 treat, and when he was obliged to charge it, he always 

 put his horse at it, however high and strong, at as 

 quick a trot as the animal could go, but never at a 

 gallop, or even a canter, if the horse could possibly be 

 restrained to a trot ; for he said that at a trot the 

 horse can always measure his ground, and when to 

 make his rise ; but at a gallop or canter he might get 

 too near, and be unable to recover himself. He never, 

 or very rarely, struck his horse at going at a fence, 

 and strongly objected to it, for he said, ' the whip or 

 the hand up directed the horse's eyes and attention 

 behind him instead of before hence many a mis- 



* Smarting Review, Feb. 1850. <\- Ibid., Jan. 1850. 



