THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



little to his satisfaction, and throwing him to the pack, who 

 were below him, on very slanting ground, and hallooing 

 ' Who-xuoop ! ' most lustily, expected to see him devoured. 

 But no ; the nature of the ground favoured him ; the hounds 

 overshot their mark, and reynard, rolling himself over, escaped 

 all their mouths, and bade them, for the present, good night. 

 As may be supposed, there was no stopping the pack with a 

 fox so near to them as this was ; and away they went in the 

 dark, through several strong covers, without any one being 

 able to follow them, many not returning to the kennel until 

 the next morning. 



The name of Raby, added to some little reputation our hero 

 had already gained in the hunting world, was a passport 

 sufficient to introduce him into the best society of this part of 

 Oxfordshire. Neither could he have fixed on a better place, 

 in some respects, to have made what might be called his debut 

 in the hunting world, with a perfectly organised establishment, 

 and with a view to future proceedings. In the first place, 

 that part of Oxfordshire called the Bicester country is one in 

 which a man attains useful lessons on riding to hounds, inas- 

 much as, from the depth of its soil, the strengtii of its fences, 

 and its numerous brooks, it is by no means one that can be 

 trifled with ; on the contrary, it requires a good horseman, on 

 a good horse, to be enabled to live well over it with hounds. 

 In the next, he reaped the benefit of good example in some of 

 the conspicuous members of the Mostyn Hunt, at that period 

 comprising some of the first horsemen of the age. For 

 example, the present Earl of Jersey, then Lord Villiers, would 

 often be seen at the cover side, previously to his removing his 

 stud to Melton for the season : Sir Henr}^ Peyton was then 

 in his prime, and, taking a season throughout, was not to 

 be beaten by any man — when on Watchmaker especially, on 

 whom he took a leap, of which a drawing was made, and a 

 plate from it, in the Sporting Magazine. It was a stile, with 

 a brook on the landing side, over which was a long foot-bridge, 

 all of which he cleared, and stopped the whole field. The 

 late Mr. Harrison, of Shelswell, a few miles from Bicester, 

 was also a beautiful horseman, and had a stable of capital 

 horses, no price stopping him. The Lloyds (brothers) were 

 likewise good, the elder (the Baronet) especially at water. 

 The celebrated Mr. Davey would also occasionally be seen 



225 P 



