The Hou7ids and Horses. 5 1 



master's eye ; but they generally became too fat. Mr. 

 Chute had a custom of physicking them, while out at 

 grass, with some mild medicine which he procured 

 from a man at Norwich. In those days clipping was 

 unknown, nor were the advantages of hot water and 

 flannel bandages generally appreciated. The differ- 

 ence between good and bad grooming was much more 

 apparent then than it is now, and the grooming at 

 the Vine was not first-rate. Accordingly, it was a 

 general remark that Chute's horses were seldom fit 

 to go till the season was half over. From this cir- 

 cumstance, as well as from a general deficiency of 

 riding power in the field, it often happened that the 

 hounds got away by themselves. I remember that in 

 my boyish enthusiasm for Mr. Chute's hounds, and in 

 my inexperience of other packs which were better 

 ridden to, I used to consider this as a great honour to 

 the hounds, and a sure proof of their superiority in 

 speed over the H.H., who were not in the habit of 

 beating their field in the same manner.* 



And this may be as good a place as any to give 

 a few miscellaneous particulars connected with the 

 pack. 



They generally hunted five times in a fortnight. 

 That is to say, they took a third day in the week 

 whenever they could. Mr. Chute never advertised, 



* At that time there was no want of good riders with the H.H. 

 Besides others well deserving to be mentioned, if that hunt were 

 my subject, there were the Greenwoods of Brookwood House, ac- 

 complished in every kind of horsemanship, military or sporting, 

 by land or by water ; and Knight of Chawton House, whose quiet 

 effective style of getting across a country was a model of sports- 

 manlike and gentlemanlike riding : always with hounds, and 

 never over them. 



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