118 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



Tom's horse pecked, and Charles was on him in a minute. 

 It was only discovered a day or two afterwards that a rib 

 had been broken. Tom's wrath — and it was great — was 

 excusable and natural, but he should not have ofone so far 

 as to say, before every one, to Charles, ' You've been 

 waiting for this chance for many a year, and now you've 

 got it.' 



" Talking of Tom being angry reminds me of some- 

 thing else. Towards the end of the season neighbouring 

 Masters were sometimes asked to have a day in Bagot's 

 Woods, and one year Anstruther Thompson brought his 

 hounds. They found, and Tom said it was a vixen. 

 Henry Tumor contradicted him, and, when the hounds 

 killed, it was found to be a vixen with eleven cubs in her. 

 Tom's rage was unbounded. 



" I mentioned Walter Boden just now, which reminds 

 me of Jacko. That was his best horse — a grey. He was 

 very fast and quick over his fences, and away again 

 directly. He was at his best when he had this horse. 

 Then there was a black horse with a back like a dinner- 

 table — an extraordinary jumper, but not very fast. 

 Edward Coke used to ride a good class of horse — well-bred 

 ones with bang tails. Walter Mynors, present Mayor of 

 Stafford, then living at Eaton Wood, used to find a good 

 many of them for him. AVhen Mynors had ridden them 

 for a year there was not much left for them to learn. 

 Clowes had a wonderful chestnut horse, which he only 

 gave sixty pounds for, but he made a lot of money at 

 Tattersall's afterwards. I remember Clowes giving a great 

 dinner at the Ship, at Greenwich, to about sixty of us 

 when he gave up the hounds. He had a special boat to 

 take them down, and did the whole thing splendidly. 



The late Michael Bass was the prime mover in the 

 dinner in honour of the present Lord Bagot's coming of 

 age. He spoke of it as ' rallying round the Bagots.' It 

 was given in a wooden building behind the inn at Abbots 

 Bromley, which had been put up for a ball when the 

 present Lord Bagot was born. All the hunt was there. 



