50 CHASING AND RACING 



gather together what hounds I could ; consequently, 

 to begin with, we had rather a mixed lot ; but among 

 them some really first-class material. As for the 

 horses, I managed to pick up some useful tits. For my 

 own riding, I hied me to Belhus, where that eccentric, 

 but kind and cheery little old sportsman, Sir Thomas 

 Lennard, was holding one of his annual sales. As 

 usual, Ted had been there in advance and had seen 

 Tom Collar, the stud groom, perform prodigies of 

 valour on certain desirable hunters. Now in those days 

 I had a theory, which later I abandoned. It was that 

 if a weight-carrier could shoulder a sixteen-stone man 

 comfortably, he would simply fly over his fences and 

 gallop his field to a standstill when he had only eleven 

 stone (my hunting weight) on his back. My acquaint- 

 ance with the ways and wiles of the thoroughbred as 

 represented by the rollicking blood ponies I had ridden 

 led me to distrust the whole race. When it comes to 

 carrying the horn and hunting one's hounds, one does 

 not want to have head and hands occupied with an 

 impatient and fiery bit of blood. So I went for hairy- 

 heeled specimens, of solid build, who could both 

 gallop and jump. 



Well, I got hold of some wonderful performers at 

 Belhus, to wit, Yeoman, a chestnut of cob build who 

 could jump anything. If he could not do it in once, 

 " he could manage it in seven," as " Rock " (Lord 

 Cholmondeley) once observed. At timber he was a 

 marvel, but he had a way of coming right under the 



