1878] ( 17 ) 



CHAPTER 11. 



FRESH FACES — THE OPENING DAY — GOOD RUN FROM SUTTON 



GORSE A FOX KILLED ON THE ICE AT SUDBURY AN 



UNMANAGEABLE FIELD— GOOD RUN FROM DUNSTALL — 

 END OF THE SEASON. 



1878-1879. 



Lord Parker, and Lady Parker, who was the sister of 

 that fine sportsman, Colonel Harford, came to Field House, 

 Marchington, Staffordshire, in 1878. He was no stranger 

 to the country, as his father. Lord Macclesfield, owned a 

 great deal of property and the extensive woodlands round 

 Croxden Abbey, just over the border of Meynell-land. He 

 was one of the rapid set at Oxford, which circulated round 

 the Marquis of Hastings, and others of a like kidney, and 

 no end of stories are told of their doings. Perhaps one 

 of the most amusing was about Lord Parker's buying a 

 pound of treacle in a grocer's shop and having it put into 

 his hat, which he promptly clapped on to the head of the 

 curly-haired shopman, whose conceited manner and am- 

 brosial locks had made him objectionable to his lordship 

 and his set. There was no form of sport at which he 

 was not an adept, and a thorough master of every detail. 

 Neither did he confine himself to any one country, for he 

 has shot tigers in India, as well as stags in Scotland. As a 

 rider to hounds he was a far better man in his prime than 

 ever he was in his earlier years, but of the science of hunt- 

 ing he was a past master, and well he might be, for there 

 was no better sportsman, or more perfect specimen of his 

 class, than his father, Lord Macclesfield. A curious incident 



