162 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



very much. At the foot of it ran a little stream, from the 

 great Fonthill Lake, the property of Mr. Morrison ; the stream 

 undoubtedly belonged to Lord Arundell, or at least half of it ; 

 so I exercised the right to fish. The bailiff of Mr. Morrison, 

 though he never said anything to me (neither did his master), 

 evidently disliked my fishing there; and I am told that the 

 bailiff publicly asserted that Lord Arundell had not the right. 

 One day, I was very busy in the water with the point-nets when 

 it struck me I heard either the roar of an unfelt breeze, or else 

 something like a small sea strayed from the ocean, and, wandering 

 over the lands above me, it sounded presently still more like 

 water ; so I stepped on to the bank of the stream, to listen what 

 was the matter. Down came the lake, in what we of the 

 Severn should term " a bore,"" tearing up the gravel, and knocking 

 about the banks like mad, while I stood laughing at it till it 

 went by. It was a trick of the foolish bailiff, to drown me out ; 

 and knowing that he could not, for the sake of his own fish 

 and stock of water, go on flooding, I sat down till it was over, 

 and then, the water being made thick, and the eels to stir, I 

 had, thanks to the bailiff, better sport than ever. Lord 

 Arundell afterwards sold this farm to Mr. Morrison. 



When I first came into Wiltshire I had a day or two with 

 Mr. Codrington's hounds, in the Great Ridge, and other places. 

 No man knew more of hunting than he did, or how he should 

 and would have done it, had he been anything within a riding 

 weight. People called him slow, and he could not, in his person, 

 well be otherwise ; but Mr. Codrington made his system suit his 

 personal capability, for, if the hounds ran hard, he saw none of 

 the fun. If he had men out with him to whom he wished to 

 show a run, he used to say to the hounds, as they went into 

 cover, " There, go and find your fox ; and when you have found 

 him, I hope I shan't see you again for two hours, and then you'll 

 have had a good run, and killed him." I forget his first man's 

 name who was with him then in Wiltshire ; but I liked what I 

 saw of him very much. We worked together one day in the 

 Great Ridge, and no man was more pleased than Mr. Codrington. 



