98 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



hounds were also engaged. There was a question 

 whether the friends of Mr. Lambton were quite in 

 position to contract the bargain, but in this dilemma 

 Sir Matthew most honourably prevented all cavil by- 

 giving up the claim to his lordship ; at the same time 

 retaining the servants to officiate with the hounds he 

 then had in his possession; he also purchased those 

 with which Lord Galway had been hunting the Rufford 

 country the preceding season. So far, matters appeared 

 to have taken a favourable turn, but with a strange 

 huntsman, fresh whippers-in, and a new kennel-man, 

 all of whom were perfectly unacquainted with the 

 hounds, their qualifications, properties, habits, dis- 

 positions, and constitutions, in a fresh country totally 

 different from the one in which they had been ac- 

 customed to hunt, where they were seldom, if ever, 

 pressed upon by hard-riding men, or even molested by 

 crowds of horsemen, and with these inconveniences 

 having to encounter a vast deal of very changeable 

 weather, at all times adverse to scent, it is not wonder- 

 ful that their sport was far from brilliant. At this 

 period another change took place in the locality of the 

 kennels ; Lord Suffield erected new ones, with stabling 

 and all other requisites, in the village of Bildestone. 

 They were only occupied by his lordship one year, when 

 the hounds were sold to Mr. Robertson, to hunt the 

 adjoining country to Sir M. W. Ridley's. 



In November 1839 Mr. Hodgson was hunting Leices- 

 tershire with a clever pack of hounds exhibiting great 

 power, which he brought with him from the Holdemess 

 country. This gentleman likewise brought with him 

 the reputation of being a first-rate sportsman, but his 

 style of hunting differed materially from that of Mr. 

 Osbaldeston. Although he did not hunt his hounds 

 himself, as he had done when at Beverley, he liked to 

 see them work up to their fox — an accomplishment 

 which I feel assured can never be realised in this country 

 as a general practice till every field is surrounded by 

 a nine feet brick wall, or some other equally impractic- 



