I04 Recollections of the Vme Hunt. 



seemed to be the leading principle in Mr. Villebois 

 mind. I believe that he carried out this principle in 

 graver matters : I have only to note how it came out 

 in the management of his sports. For instance, though 

 he would not willingly engage himself to dine out on a 

 hunting day, yet if he had made such an engagement, 

 he would leave the hounds running rather than fail to 

 keep it. Again, it once happened, when I was out with 

 him on a by-day, and we were pressing our fox well 

 over the open, with a fair prospect of killing him, that 

 we drew near to Chilton Wood, which was advertised 

 as one of the meets of that week. Immediately Ville- 

 bois' horn was heard a little wide of us, and the hounds 

 were stopped : he would rather curtail his own day's 

 sport than run the risk of breaking faith with the pub- 

 lic by disturbing a cover appropriated to another day. 

 I remember that Sir Henry Warde was riding close to 

 me : he was a younger brother of John Warde, though 

 not by any means a young man, and was full of the 

 family enthusiasm for hunting. When he heard the in- 

 evitable horn, he turned to me with a look of vexation, 

 exclaiming, ' Well, I dare say this is all very right ; 

 but / could not have given that order to save my life.' 

 Again, it chanced that I was one of a small party who 

 had gone to a meet, not far from the kennel, on a day 

 so wet that the hounds did not come. At the instiga- 

 tion of some of the party, we rode on to Harmsworth 

 to complain of their not keeping their appointment. 

 Villebois had considered the day too bad for hunting, 

 and, I think, was not particularly well pleased with the 

 application ; but he said at once, 'Certainly, gentlemen, 

 if you have chosen to come to the place of meeting in 

 such weather, you have a right to the hounds : only 



