SUBURBAN HUNTING 45 



He was an excellent judge of ground, had a quick eye to hounds, 

 and seemed so know by instinct the weakest place in a fence, as 

 well as the soundest land. Jealous of other riders to any ex- 

 tent, in going through a gate, he would shut it behind him, and 

 " beg pardon " at the same moment. The only time that I can 

 remember his really going well was when we ran from the plough 

 country across the Uxbridge road near Hayes, and had had a 

 deal to do before we got there. Tollemache trotted the lanes 

 all the first part of the run, the country deluged with water, and 

 immensely heavy ; and when the hounds pointed for the Har- 

 row Vale, and came down for the Yeading brook, then a bumper 

 above its brim, Tollemache, followed by Mr. Parker, now Colonel 

 Parker, then of the Life Guards, and a beginner, showed in front 

 without a hair turned on Radical. I had never seen him before 

 in the run, and as he came out of some hidden lane, it seemed 

 as if he had fallen from the clouds. Well did he know the state 

 of our horses ; and hesitating not a moment, he put Radical out 

 of dirt up to his hocks at the brook, and cleared it, followed by 

 Parker. On landing, he took off his hat to us, and, in truth, 

 bade us all good-bye. Though I was on Brutus, one of whose 

 feats was brook-jumping, he had but a trot left in him, and I 

 therefore was obliged to decline a certain ducking, with every 

 difficulty against getting my horse out if I got him in, and Mr. 

 Tollemache and Colonel Parker sailed away, the only men with 

 the hounds, over that fine country. 



No man went harder than the late Lord Alvanley, and no 

 man ever caught more falls. Not a good horseman, I have seen 

 him, when his horse refused a fence, roll over his head into it, 

 which a good horseman ought never to do. One day he had 

 been hunting with me, and we ran over an unfortunate line of 

 country, the stag leaving the legitimate scene of our sports, and, 

 setting his head for Hounslow, Isleworth, Twickenham, and 

 Brentford. Lord Alvanley left us before I had taken the deer, 

 in good time to join his friends in the bay window at White's. 

 They asked him, "What sport?" and he replied, "Devilish 

 good run ; but the asparagus beds went awfully heavy, and the 



