First Whipper-in. 155 



Middleham village pointing for the " Hare and Hounds," one 

 field from the Hylace farm. He was a ripping fine cub, 

 and, of course, was still wearing his collar, which did not 

 seem to have stopped him much ; in fact I think it is a 

 good receipt for keeping foxes' heads strarght, though you 

 could not depend upon dressing " Charley " so neatly as I 

 saw done on this occasion. Being up at his death in good 

 time I was able to relieve him of his jewellery before any 

 one noticed it, but Lord Henry Vane Tempest who had 

 been going as straight as a crow, as was his custom 

 throughout, thought that there was something suspicious 

 about my movements, but after making a close inspection 

 discovered nothing ; still he was very jealous about it, but 

 I said nothing about it at the time, as it had been a first 

 rate gallop, and we all went home fight hearted, but I told 

 Claxon aU about it on the way home. 



I ought to have mentioned the sport we had from Camp 

 whin, in Mr. Harvey's time, with some cubs that Captain 

 Young, a great supporter of foxhunting, though not so often 

 in the field as we should have liked, sent us. I believe he 

 got them (seven in number) from Norway, and they were 

 very small and young, little bigger than rats, and all furry 

 when he sent them to the kennels at Hard wick. Claxon 

 thought that they were too young to rear, and I was very 

 doubtful about the result, but we determined to give them 

 a trial, and with good food, new milk and rabbits we brought 

 them up, until Mr. Burdon's gamekeeper at Castle Eden, 

 who used to send us a lot of cubs at times, sent over an 

 old vixen that had lost her cubs. She did not come to 

 suckle them, as they had been " fending " for themselves 

 for some time, and were quite strong, but, unfortunately, 

 Claxon put her in with the cubs, and she killed a couple 



