196 • THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



MR. RICHARD FORT, M.F.H. — THE GREAT MODDERSHALL OAKS 



RUN THE GREAT WINSTER RUN CAPTAIN JACOBSON 



— THE FIRST OF SIR PETER WALKER's POINT-TO-POINT 

 RACES — STEPHEN BURTENSHAW. 



1893-1894. 



Mr. Fort was educated at Eton, where lie went in 1866, 

 and naturally took to the river, as his father had rowed in 

 the Eton eight. Not that the cricket-field had not almost 

 equal attractions ; but cricket admits of no rival, and, 

 having chosen to be a " wet bob," he could hardly hope 

 to play, like his Winchester brother, in his school eleven. 

 His earliest hunting recollections are of the days when his 

 uncle, Mr. Hall, was Master of the Heythrop, and, when 

 he went to Oxford, matriculating at Brasenose in 1874, 



" At his little go in hunting, 

 With what diligence he worked," 



hunting as often as was possible with all the neighbouring 

 packs, and learning the art of falling. 



Some one once told the late Sir William FitzHerbert, 

 " Your little boy has had a fall." 



"They must learn how to fall," quoth the Roman 

 father, as he rode on, unheeding. 



In 1877 the subject of this sketch passed into Sandhurst 

 as a University candidate, thus giving the lie to the sarcastic 

 verse which says, " Nature made for every sportsman an 

 inferior set of brains ! " and, somewhere about this time, he 

 purchased, for a mere song, the famous grey mare, Dear 

 Heart. " Hoc fecit Wykeham " was the motto at which 



