The Wheatland. xvii 



will take the trouble to go and have a look over this pack 

 on the flags, and in their work, I will answer for it they 

 will return with new ideas of what hounds like these are 

 capable of, and if not convinced that all is not quite as it 

 should be with them, at least they will admit that thev 

 are very wonderful animals. Sir William Curtis has yet 

 his spurs to win, but I have confidence that with health 

 and vigour he will both succeed in doing this, and wearing 

 them. He gives up a most perfect pack of beagles, his 

 success with which are a most hopeful sign for him as an 

 M.F.H. 



The Wheatland have had a most chequered career 

 for many seasons, and now Captain Summers after 

 only one season's mastership, I hear, is going to retire, 

 The disappointment is all the worse as it was thought 

 when he took them, that the arrangement would have been 

 a permanent one. Coming from Pembrokeshixe he had 

 been well schooled for his work, and brought with him a 

 keenness and desire to excel, wliioh I thought augured well 

 for himself and the country. One thing he has undoubtedly 

 done even in his short tenure of office. He has improved 

 the pack. They are most workmanlike, have a rare 

 lot of tongue, and hunt together like a pack of beagles. 

 They are admirably suited to the country, which in some 

 of its attributes is the best in Shropshire, and there is 

 nothing I should like better, if Providence so ordained it, 

 than to throw in my lot with the Wheatland. Such a fine 

 wild, scenting country, not cut up by railways, nor worried 

 by monster fields — where every man is a sportsman, and 

 there are few drags to the coach. Old Forester, of 

 Willey, once said of the Wheatland in answer to a question 

 whether he approved of the men there, " Very much, 

 sir," said he. *' I did not see one d — d fellow in wliite 



