388 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



fined, no other master of hounds could lumt a cover 

 within those limits, without the leave of the master in 

 possession. By courtesy, the owners of the lands and 

 woods could not give their possessions to a foreign 

 hunt, although they could refuse to the master situ- 

 ated in their locality the run of them. If a foreign 

 master of hounds accepted an invitation to enter the 

 bounds of his neighbour's country, though on the in- 

 vitation of individual proprietors, the master whose 

 country was infringed on would have had a casus 

 belli, in which every gentleman would have borne him 

 out against the aggressor ; and he could have turned 

 the infringement of his bounds into a quarrel, in 

 which his opponent would not have been permitted 

 to have shot at him. One of the quarrels arising on 

 the boundaries of respective hunting countries, in 

 which I was called in to arbitrate, was that between 

 Mr. Farquharson and Mr. Drax. In this quarrel, 

 Mr. Farquharson decidedly threw the first stone, and 

 was Avrong ; I say this at the same time that I bear 

 for him the highest respect and esteem, as well as 

 entertain the sincere hope that he will continue to 

 hunt his country in the same liberal and effective way 

 which he has done for forty years or more, for a length- 

 ened period yet to come. He was in error thus: — 

 He had hunted the old Charborough country, which 

 might be termed a country within a country, and 

 which was given up by the then existing Mr. Drax 

 Grosvenor only until such time as one of the Drax 

 family might desire to reclaim it. There Avas no male 

 heir, and Mr. Sawbridge, now Mr. Drax, marrying his 

 only daughter, representing the male head of the 

 family, claimed it in right of his wife. The facts were 

 on paper, so there was no gainsaying them ; and there 

 was no true ground of objection in tlie statement, 



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