CHAPTER VI 



" Perplex thy soul no more with cares below, 

 For what will pelf avail ! 

 Thy courser paws the ground, 

 Each heagle cocks his tail, 

 They spend their mouths around." 



Oh Somerville, good God ! why sing you so 

 Each sportsman's ear to wound ? 



THE time for which I had agreed to hunt the country for a 

 thousand a year with the Oakley Club was now concluded, and 

 the Club intimated to me that they should look out for another 

 master of hounds. I cut that very short at once by telling them 

 that the country did not belong to the Club ; it belonged to the 

 proprietors of covers and to me so long as I had their permission ; 

 and if I found any other master of hounds endeavouring to 

 undermine me and in negotiation with them, the matter would 

 be personal between him and me. The tenant-farmers, too, took 

 my part strongly ; and they addressed a memorial, numerously 

 signed by tenants cultivating many thousand acres, to his Grace 

 of Bedford, as the leading proprietor, expressing their wishes that 

 the proprietors would continue to support me, and saying, much 

 interested as they were in it, " I had their best wishes to a man." 

 The document was very complimentary to me ; and considering 

 the acreage farmed by my yeomen friends, and the good- will now 

 kindly exhibited towards me by a number of gentlemen owning 

 covers, the Oakley Club were nonsuited ; they could neither get 

 a master of hounds to negotiate with them, nor could they take 

 the country from me. This attempt to domineer over me was of 



