46 BEAUFORT HUNT: PAST AND PRESENT. 



say that the Duke's country is better farmed now than it was say 

 from 1880 to 1890. Perhaps less labour is employed, but the tillage 

 lauds look to me cleaner, and a good deal has been laid down to 

 pasture with excellent effect ; witness the fine grass fields about 

 Easton Grey laid down by Graham-Smith with courage and foresight 

 in the height of the depression. In these hard days many neigh- 

 bourly things were done. I recollect hearing at the time of a young 

 farmer telling the present Duke out cub hunting that it was his last 

 day and that he was bound to sell a good young horse by " Birdhill " 

 to make up the rent. Lord Worcester asked him the price, bought 

 the horse, and begged him to ride it as his own for the rest of the 

 season. I believe the conversation and the arrangement took place 

 in Surrendel Wood. 



When I come to the farmers themselves, all kinds of recollections 

 of fun we have had together flood in upon me, things going well, 

 hounds favouring you at every turn, falls, being left behind, being 

 pounded, or letting your horse go, all the ups and downs in short 

 which make fox hunting what it means to us in England. What 

 good talks, too, I have had with your folk riding on to cover in the 

 days when we all had to ride, and riding home, perhaps on lame or 

 stone cold horses. There was nothing like a Kich, a Kil minster, a 

 Garlick, or a Teagle (to mention only a few of the ancient farming 

 families) to get you over the long miles. Nor can I ever forget the 

 ready and unfailing kindnesses my children have received from the 

 farmers. Thanks to them the Duke of Beaufort's country is surely 

 a paradise for boys home for the holidays, or little schoolroom girla 

 on shifty ponies. I feel certain that my grateful experiences in this 

 respect are common to every parent and guardian from Wootton 

 Bassett to Bath, from Kingscote to the Plough Downs. 



Then outside the actual agriculturists, my memory travels back- 

 wards to men like Frank Hiscock and Fred Godwin of Sodbury, and 

 Charlie Rich, who let out and dealt in hunters, or any sort of horse, 

 as well as farmed. There was a great deal to be learnt from these 

 men in many kinds of ways, and if now and again you bought j^our 

 experience, you bought it much cheaper and in a more amusing way 

 than you get it at a fashionable dealer's at Cheltenham or Market 

 Harborougli. One of the best horses I owned or rode I bought of 

 C. Rich on a very fine Sunday afternoon early in February. The 

 day was mild as milk, and Charlie's mood after a Sunday dinner in 

 gentle harmony with all around. After much conversation, and after 

 his son and heir, the Bill Rich of to-day, had been made to jump 

 the animal in and out of a narrow strip of orchard seriously encum- 

 bered by veteran apple trees, we dealt at £27. I rode Happy Jack 

 for vears, and he was much admired in the Royal Procession at Ascot, 

 or anvhow the Second Whip who rode him said so. Then there was 

 Mr. Henry Jones of the " King's Arm:^," and Mr. Joe Moore, still at 

 " The Bell," at Malmesbury, both prosperous in other lines of business. 



