THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



if he don't mend his stable." I think so, too, Daunth'y ; and I 

 nmst go to Moftes before next liunting season — that is to say, 

 if Mr. Darkin don't win the Oaks. Truenian gives me hopes 

 in his Uxst letter ; he says " Rouge is one of the best goei's of a 

 young one he ever saw." As he is so good a judge, I think 

 something of this. He says nothing of Euphrosyne ; but if one 

 of them can do the trick it's enough. 



' Now for my opinion of what I have seen. I like the 

 Melton fellows much — " no nonsense about them," as Jack 

 Bailey says ; and they are very civil — indeed, kind to me ! 

 Of the hounds I should say this : — The Quorn and Lord 

 Lonsdale's are the most businesslike, but the Duke's are, 

 perhaps, the handsomest to the eye. They certainly show 

 nmch blood, as we say of horses. The others are coarser in 

 some of their points ; for example, a hound in the Quorn 

 called Guzman, which Raven told me they breed much from, 

 is coarse in his fore-quarters, with what old Dick calls " a chit- 

 terling shirt about his neck." I believe the term is, " a little 

 throating." But they all have good legs, and feet, and loins, 

 at least as far as I am a judge. The Duke's, with a good 

 scent, are called the fastest ; indeed, one day last week they 

 ran clean away from the horses, in a burst of twelve minutes 

 — only one thorough-bred one being able to live with them. 

 Shaw confessed he was beat half a mile in four, and over the 

 finest part of the country for a splitter. Lord Lonsdale's are 

 capital hunters, and, I believe, seldom lose a fox, unless by 

 accident, when the scent serves. The country I met them in 

 looked very much like fox-hunting. The fixture was Tilton 

 Wood. Yesterday, I met the Quorn again ; it was the pack 

 hunted by Stephen Goodall, a most intelligent-looking fellow, 

 but a cruel weight for a horse. He is said to be very clever, 

 and if up with his hounds in time, generally puts them right, 

 when at fault. We had a capital run, and I am happy to say 

 I was capitally carried by Bowman. I suppose I could put 

 him into my pocket at a large sum, if I was so disposed, as 

 Pritchard tells me no less than three of his brothers of the 

 stable have asked him whether he was for sale ? There was 

 some desperate riding yesterday ; and I understand the part 

 of the Stanton Brook which Forester leaped on a horse called 

 Bernado, measured thirty-two feet — a great leap for a horse, 

 with better than fourteen stone on his back. 



' Now, then, adieu till we meet. If you chance to see the 



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