290 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



And so, I think, we all did. He might be at times brusque 

 in his manner, but there was an inherent uprightness and 

 honesty about him that you could not help liking and 

 respecting. He was what the Sussex folk call "an up- 

 standing, down-sitting sort of a man." His " yea " was 

 "yea," and his "nay" was "nay." No one could cajole 

 him into agreeing with them. When he shut that firm 

 mouth of his, stuck out his chin, and set up his great 

 shoulders, you might know his mind was made up, and 

 there was an end of it. But every rule has its exception. 

 The writer remembers meeting Charles in the summer after 

 the three great hill runs of 1896. He was describing how 

 at one point hounds had a line down the road, which they 

 were picking out slowly, when several of the field shouted 

 to him that the fox had gone to the left. " I might have 

 known they were wrong," he said, " for the same hounds 

 that had been leading all the way were leading up the 

 road, and I lost my fox by listening to the people." 



"That is not much like you, Charles. I never knew 

 you do that before." 



" No ; and I'll take dommed good care I never do it 

 again," was the characteristic reply. 



This was just after the Peterborough Show, where 

 Charles had had to submit to a good deal of good- 

 humoured chaff from his brethren in the craft, who would 

 ask him, "Haven't you killed that old hill fox yetf' 

 It will always be a question whether he cared about 

 killing his fox or not. Sometimes he did not seem to care 

 a rap about it. Apparently he came home just as happy 

 when he had lost his fox after a good run as when he had 

 killed him. He would often say in the former case, 

 "He'll be wanted another day." If he was indifferent 

 about blood, it may have been because at one time, in the 

 seventies, foxes were not over plentiful, and one might 

 well "be wanted another day." 



Once when hounds had run clean away from all the 

 field in the Bretby country, and he was galloping hard in 

 pursuit, some one said to him, " I hope they'll kill him ; " 



