124 NIMROD'S HUNTING TOUR 



improved. They are more powerful and better hunters ; and I have 

 no hesitation in saying, that they are exactly in the form in which 

 they ought to be for the very severe country and the very gallant 

 foxes they have to contend with. Their condition, also, I consider 

 perfect. 



There is one circumstance worthy of notice in Sir Thomas 

 Mostyn's country, evidently flattering to the establishment, and 

 that is, the steadiness with which so many of his field — not resi- 

 dents in Oxfordshire — adhere to his country. Colonel Broadhead 

 is, I should think, of more than twenty years' standing, and many 

 others nearly approaching that period. Amongst the residents 

 also w^e see the same faces ; and, what is agreeable to every well- 

 disposed mind, faces but little marked by the killing hand of time. 

 I was most happy to see Sir Henry Peyton, the Messrs. Drake, Mr. 

 G. Lloyd, Lord Jersey, Mr. Pierrepoint, Mr. Jones, cum imiltis aliis 

 too numerous to mention, all looking and going as well as when I 

 saw them last. Sir Edward Lloyd, still well disposed to go, got 

 disabled by a fall on the second day of his hunting, and could not 

 come again ; but his eldest son, Mr. Mostyn Lloyd, is become quite 

 a leading man over this difficult country. When speaking of nerve, 

 however, we must not forget Mr. Peyton (Sir Henry's son), who 

 has made such a capital start, and who, when a little more perfected 

 by experience, will, by every one's account of him, make as good a 

 performer as his father. The endowments of nature, however, like 

 the gifts of fortune, are often hereditary ; and this is only what 

 might have been expected. 



There is no small alloy in the present history of Oxfordshire ; 

 and that is, the continued indisposition of Sir Thomas Mostyn, who 

 has been confined all this season by the gout, and consequently not 

 able to see his hounds even one day in the field. It is natural 

 enough to hear Tom Wingfield (his huntsman) say, he thinks it 

 would do him good if he would only " come out and see 'em find ; " 

 but a man in health cannot dictate to a man in pain. 



On the following morning I met these hounds again at Gallows 

 Bridge, eight miles from Bicester on the Aylesbury road. This 

 fixture is generally voted a bad one, and therefore seldom fashionably 

 attended. It is true there is an awkward association in the name ; 



