THE T.IFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



fewer followciis oL' the chase in the Universities than are to be 

 found in them at the present day. In fact, I ]ui\e already said 

 there were only about a dozen really good workmen, at this 

 period, at Oxford, wlio kept hnnter-s during term, and who nmy 

 be said to have done the thing in a truly workmanlike style 

 throughout. Amongst them was a connnoner of Oriel, who 

 accompanied Hargrave and Frank Raby, on a line morning in 

 the first week in December, to Oddington Ashes, a favourite 

 cover in the Beaufort Hunt ; their horses having been sent to 

 Chipping Norton on the preceding evening, the distance from 

 Oxford being upwards of twenty miles. 



In those days there were not the crowds of horsemen with 

 hounds, composing what is termed ' the held,' that are now 

 to be seen ; but, on the day of which I am speaking, about 

 fifty well-mounted gentlemen and half a dozen farmers were 

 assembled — all having some pretensions to be called sports- 

 men ; in other words, they were met together for very different 

 purposes than riding at, or over, each other, after the manner 

 of our steeple-chase jockeys of these times; and driving hounds 

 over the scent, as if that instinctive agent, called nose, was by 

 no means necessary to their pursuing it, to the final accom- 

 plishment of their object — the death of a stout fox. 



It is unnecessary to relate all the particulars of this day's 

 hunting; sufiice it to say, that a fox was soon found, and, 

 after having taken two deep rings in this justly celebrated cover, 

 broke under the most favourable circumstances ; namely, with 

 the body of the hounds on the scent, and the horsemen where 

 they should be ; not too near, to drive them over the scent, or 

 so far distant from them as to be unable to enjoy them in their 

 work. Still there was one thing unusual in the break. The 

 general run of foxes from Oddington Ashes is, what is called in 

 that country, ' up hill ' ; that is to say, not down the vale, but 

 either for the woods of Heythrop, or Ditchley, or, as oftentimes, 

 for the forest of Witchwood. Upon this day, however, the fox 

 took a very different course, going straight down the vale for 

 Pain's Furze, near to the town of Moreton-in-Marsh, and thence 

 to Bourton Wood — beyond Bourton-on-the-Hill — now hunted 

 by Lord Segrave. Nor was this regretted by the young- 

 Oxonians, although it took them in a contrary direction to their 

 homes. It gave to Frank Raby, and to the connnoner of Oriel 

 — whose name, by the bye, was Goodall — an opportunity of 



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