292 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



would make Bagot's or Kingstone Woods ring again. In 

 fact, he was quite first rate in the woods. With hounds 

 running hard over the open it was a pleasure to be with 

 him. There was no hesitation, no waiting for any one 

 to go first, and he seemed to slip along over the strongest 

 country as if there were no obstacles, while his cheer 

 when hounds hit the line at a check was most inspiriting. 

 What good company he was, too, on the way to covert, 

 or on the journey home, with his cigar in his mouth. 

 Every field and every covert brought out a reminiscence 

 or a racy anecdote of some one. He was very observant, 

 and a great judge of character. Every one in the hunt 

 was carefully weighed in the balance of his mind, and 

 few escaped his keen and somewhat caustic criticism, A 

 stranger once asked him how so-and-so, a nice light-weight 

 and capital horseman, went. First, or second, or where ? 

 "He likes to go a good last," said Charles. "When he 

 was born a gentleman they spoilt the best second horseman 

 in England ! " 



Again, on a great county magnate, whose wealth was 

 proverbial, saying to him, " You know, Charles, I'm a 

 very poor man," he looked up, in a sharp way that he 

 had, and burst out with, " If you're poor, the Lord help 

 the rest ! " One little anecdote is indicative of a trait in 

 his character which few people would expect from his 

 bluff manner. Coming up the school lane, Sudbury, on 

 a Saturday, on his way home from cub-hunting, he was 

 always most careful to have the hounds kept ofi" the door- 

 steps of the cottages. " They've just cleaned them, you 

 see," he would say ; and, of course, the hounds were all 

 wet and dirty, having just crossed the river. Of all his 

 horses, and he seldom, if ever, of late years, had tO' ride 

 a bad one, Gobbo was the one he liked to talk of best. 

 He persuaded Lord Waterpark to buy him when Mr. 

 Meynell Ingram's horses were sold at Derby, though he 

 was only a four-year-old, protesting that, young as he was, 

 he would do more work than " a dealer's horse stuffed full 

 of potatoes and such trash." When he had ridden him a 



