AS M.F.H. 17 



brace of foxes. The new entry of hounds consisted of 

 fourteen and a half couples seven and a half couple 

 from the Woodlands Pytchley, six couple from the 

 Carlow hounds, and a grand couple of 26-inch young 

 dog hounds, a present from Lord Fitzhardinge from the 

 Berkeley. At the end of the season the Pau hunt pre- 

 sented him with a magnificent silver tankard. 



The two following seasons were equally successful. 

 Although a very hard rider he had hitherto escaped 

 without any severe falls, but in the last year of his 

 Mastership he broke his collar-bone, and there is little 

 doubt in some way injured the lung. 1 As soon as he 

 could ride again he was out with the hounds, but a bad 

 cough developed. With care it might have cured itself, 

 but care and Victor Brooke were far apart, and as soon 

 as he was able to get on a horse he resumed his duties 

 as Master ; for some time he struggled on, fighting with 

 an illness that refused to be thus lightly treated ; as 

 long as he could ride to the hounds, he stuck to it, but 

 strength failing he entrusted them to a member of the 

 hunt. 



Week after week his cough increased, and at last 

 became so serious that he determined to go to London 

 and consult the late Sir Andrew Clark, an old friend of 

 many years. Sir Andrew's opinion of his illness was 

 very grave, and he ordered him at once to Egypt, as 

 the only chance of effecting a cure. In March f 88 8, 

 when he set sail, his condition seemed very alarming. 



1 There is no doubt, besides the injury to the lung from the broken 

 bone, he had all his life tried his extraordinary physique too severely, and 

 something in time was bound to give way. Mr. Maude has assured me 

 that over and over again Brooke, coming in after a long day's hunting, ' 

 would spend the best part of the night seeing the earths stopped in the 

 district he was going to hunt next day, so as to ensure good sport in the 

 morning. Only ten days after the broken collar-bone, with the top of his 

 lung injured by it, he spent a snowy night following foxes through the deep 

 snow in the Bois de Sauvagnon. 



