THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



country on which that noble game is to be found ! There was, 

 indeed, but one drawback from the sum-total of happiness 

 of which this party were partakers, and this was — ' the 

 reckoning.' Including the rent of the shooting-ground, it 

 amounted to nearly £600, to be divided into three parts, our 

 hero's proportion being rather an awkward set-off against the 

 annual amount of his income, which, as has been already 

 stated, did not exceed £800. To the others of the party it was 

 a flea-bite. 



In the circle of British sports, fox-hunting ever must and will 

 take the precedence ; and towards the end of October, having, 

 up to that period, hunted with his father's harriers, and satisfied 

 himself of the efficiency of his stud, Frank Raby determined on 

 making his (Mmt as a fox-hunter, but not his election of hounds 

 and country, until experience of some of the best of them had 

 fully enabled him to decide as to which to give the preference. 

 Of Oxfordshire he had had a taste during his residence at 

 Oxford, and this was the opinion he had formed of it: — the hill 

 country was light and uncertain wath regard to scent, but a 

 clean and gentlemanlike one to ride over, and contained many 

 excellent sportsmen. The vale called the Bicester country was 

 preferable ; he considered it, despite of its large woods on one 

 side of it, and the almost fathomless depth of its soil after a 

 hard frost succeeded by rain, what may be termed a fox-hunting 

 country, and he had seen some fine runs in it. A criterion 

 of the strength of it, he used to say, might be ascertained by 

 the fact, that not only did the Oxford livery stable-keepers 

 charge a third more for horses ridden over it by the gownsmen 

 than they did for those ridden over the hill country, but the 

 calculation of falls, by the riders of them, was in the proportion 

 of three to one in favour of the vale ; that is to say, there were 

 three falls in the vale, to one in the hill country. But the 

 Northamptonshire side of the country, he used to say, cannot 

 be ridden over without falls by a man who is determined to be 

 with hounds. 



There was likewise another country which he had had a 

 taste of when at Oxford, and that was what was called the 

 Vale of White Horse, adjoining to the Craven country ; and, 

 althouo'h in the county of Berks, some of its best covers were 

 within easy reach of Oxford. He liked parts of that country 

 much : being a dairy country, it abounded in fine large grass 



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