CHAPTER XVII 



Frank Raby becomes a regular Meltonian ; loses his father, and finally settles 

 down as a master of foxhounds, the point of honour in the Life of a 

 Sportsman. 



It is scarcely necessarj^ to observe, that the first week in the 

 succeeding November found our hero at Melton Mowbray, 

 occupying the house which he had already tenanted for 

 upwards of two j^ears, and with his stud increased to fourteen 

 hunters and two cover hacks. And his indoors establishment 

 was this : — at the head of it was his trusty butler, who had 

 lived nearly all his life with his late uncle, and consequently, 

 having known him in his childhood, was attached to his person 

 and interests Ijeyond mercenary views, and who kept all his 

 accounts ; liis own personal servant, or valet, skilled in the 

 art of clothes-cleaning, and especially in the department of the 

 boots, then only in its infancy'; a French cook, with the 

 highest attestations of his abilities from Lord Edmonston, with 

 whom he had lived, and who had ' parted with him for 

 no fault,' as the horse -chaunter says in his puft' of the 

 patched-up screw ; an English kitchen-maid of no slender 

 qualifications, without which no man's cuisine is complete; 

 his housekeeper, having had her education in the Amstead 

 still-room, under the tuition of Mrs. Jones ; a footman and a 

 housemaid bringing up the rear. Here it will be perceived is 

 no wanton prodigality, nor was any such indulged in by our 

 young sportsman. His practice was to give dinners twice a 

 week, to parties of eight, and on the evenings on which he had 

 no engagement, one friend at least would be his guest, to talk 

 over the events of the day. And at no place, except Melton, 

 is there such a never-failing succession of events to be dis- 

 cussed on these occasions, by reason of there being three packs 

 of hounds within reach, and the certainty that out of a party 

 of eight, one attendant, at least, upon each pack, would be 

 found. Having stated all this, there is little room for doubting 



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