170 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



for they had in them the old Monson blood ; and I 

 have tried in my own kennel the stock of Mr. Osbal- 

 deston's Racer, Chorister, Bluecap, Rocket, and 

 Vanguard, Flourisher, Sailor, Factor, and Conqueror ; 

 and than those from Chorister nothing could be 

 better. Jack's hounds, when I saw them, were like 

 him ; they were all haste as long as they could see ; 

 flight and spur, whip and horn, and then a " devil 

 of a pause:" they gathered it from the man who 

 taught them. My good friend Mr. William Wynd- 

 ham's hounds, at Dinton, learned the most calm and 

 gentlemanly conduct from their huntsman and master ; 

 they scorned to take any advantage of a fox, and 

 if the fox forgot himself, and turned short among 

 them, they would not lay hold of him, it not being 

 deemed by them according to etiquette to meet a 

 fox face to face and catch him; they only laid hold 

 of him when, by following directly on the line 

 of his brush, he could be made weary or foolish 

 enough to sit down and to wait for their decent ap- 

 proach. Many of Mr. Wyndham's hounds were from 

 the Badminton blood, and I am sure I have seen 

 Bill Long's pack roll up a fox the quickest way they 

 could get at him ; and, therefore, as I have ever said, 

 it must be example, and not nature, that makes the 

 same blood act so differently in different kennels. 

 My hounds, I take it, never forgot what they saw 

 me do the first year I hunted Bedfordshire. I had 

 run a fox into a drain, I think near the Lavendon 

 Woods, and had a deal of work to get him there : 

 the young pack, and myself too, had had enough for 

 one day, and they needed blood, so I resolved that 

 we, they and myself together, should draw the fox. 

 There were several spouts to the drain, and the 

 drain, though in the fields, was very near the large 



