THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



of the pack, by the cover side, there must be a good man in 

 the kennel. 



'There are several very superior horsemen, as well as sports- 

 men, membei-s of tiiis hunt^botli heavy and light weights. 

 Among tlie former, indeed, there is one — namely, Mr. Boltab}^ 

 who treads hard on the heels of the extraordinary performer 

 I spoke of witli the Warwickshire hounds, inasmuch as he 

 is always in a good place in a run, although not nearly 

 so well mounted as the hero of the " Warwickshire lads." 

 Among the latter is wliat may be; called a rara avis in the 

 land. He is a taiuier of hides by trade, and resides in the 

 town of Nuneaton ; and neither himself nor his mare — also a 

 rara avis of her kind — have pretensions nearly equal to their 

 merits. In the hrst place, he is a very small person ; and 

 in the next, his mare is of equally diminutive size ; neverthe- 

 less, there not only is not a man in the Atherstone hunt that 

 can beat the tanner on his good little mare, but, strange to 

 say, he has gone out two or three times with the Quorn 

 hounds, in their strongest country, and been amongst the 

 foremost men in the tield. In fact, so annoyed was one cele- 

 brated character in that liunt, at the presence of the tanner 

 and his mare, following him as though they had been his 

 shadow, and over every description of fence, that he was at 



length heard to exclaim, "Now I'll break his d d neck." 



But the neck of the tanner was spared, perhaps, by a fortunate 

 occurrence. The celebrated character I allude to, mounted, 

 perhaps, on one of the best horses in Leicestershire, rode at 

 some timber, a foot or more higher than the little mare's 

 back ; but, breaking the topmost rail, the tanner and his mare 

 followed him. But his history does not rest here. Being 

 invariably clad in a light green jacket, he has obtained the 

 sobriquet of the Parrakeet, to which his flying propensities — 

 for no man goes faster after hounds, or gets over higher fences 

 — have sufficiently established his title. At all events, he is a 

 gallant little fellow, and his good little mare may well be said 

 to be nearly worth her weight in gold. 



' To describe a run with hounds is so difficult a task — at 

 least, when justice is to be done to the subject — that I am 

 almost afraid to attempt it; nevertheless, I cannot resist 

 giving you a short account of one we had last week, attended 

 with some peculiarly interesting circumstances. In the first 



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