40 FOX-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



unaccountably lost. Being rather late everybody 

 went home except Sir William Throckmorton 

 and myself. I hung about for half an hour 

 waiting for a missing hound, when my second 

 whip trotted up to me with the hound, and 

 whispered in my ear, '' I have just seen our hunted 

 fox.'' I said, '' Take me to where you saw him 

 without another word.'' A few yards off, in a 

 thick hedgerow, two or three feet from the ground, 

 sure enough there lay our fox. Out he jumped, 

 ran into Oaksey Wood, and after a few minutes 

 the hounds caught him. I was never so pleased 

 in my life as I was to kill that fox, though we 

 should not have caught him but for the intelligence 

 of Will Shepherd. This made a good finish to a 

 very fair day. 



Three days afterwards, on the 4th of April, 

 I had another invitation day in the Duke's 

 country, but not with the same success as the 

 previous year, and our sport was very moderate. 



During this season we hunted eighty-nine 

 days ; killed 19 brace, and were stopped six 

 days by frost. The fall I got in January had left 

 its effects upon me, and I decided to resign the 

 hounds at the end of the season, namely, on ist 

 of May 1873. After I left, Charles Travess was 

 appointed huntsman, and although thirty-four 

 years have since elapsed, he is still there in 



