CHAPTER X. 



" Alas ! by some degree of woe, 

 We every bliss must gain ; 

 The heart can ne'er a transport know 

 That never feels a pain." 



AMONGST other gentlemen hunting with us at this time 

 was Mr. Marshall Fowler,* who seldom missed a day, 

 and had a very nice stud of horses. His father, who was a 

 terror to all poachers and wrong-doers, preserved foxes well 

 at Preston Hall, where we ran occasionally, but it is in 

 the Hurworth country. Mr. Marshall Fowler had a wonder- 

 fully good grey horse ; also a chestnut and a bay which 

 carried him well. Later on he had some very smart hunting 

 cobs of a grand stamp, and up to weight on short legs, 

 which must have taken a good deal of finding. Mr. Fowler 

 used to say that he just missed Mr. Ralph Lambton, but 

 he was an eye-witness of the accident which befel the 

 Marquis of Londonderry over a fence at Oxeye on the north 



* Mr. Marshall Fowler had some good horses in his time; notably a black horse by " Sir 

 Hercules," that carried him from 1867 to 1875 without a fall. Dick Christian rode this 

 horse with the Hurworth hounds, and used to say that he never rode a better horse 

 across country. Another good horse of his was "Pug-dog," an extraordinary water 

 jumper, that carried his owner wonderfully well in a noteworthy run with Lord Fitz- 

 hardinge's hounds over the Severn marshes, when out of an enormous field only six 

 horsemen saw the kill, one of whom was a " lady from Bristol on a white horse." 



