COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 209 



in the feace ". By this time Luke and the hounds 

 had arrived, and the buck was safely captured, and was 

 kept for many years after in a paddock at Whittlebury. 



I bought the foxhound " Damsel " for two sovs., 

 brought her to Fife, and gave her to Sir Arthur 

 Halkett to hunt roe-deer. 



In 1902 John Horsey, of Dallington, in North- 

 amptonshire, wrote : 



" Your remarks about the deer-hunting in 

 Whittlebury Forest take me back to those days. 

 They sold the last couple of bloodhounds in North- 

 ampton Market, when John Stevenson, a sporting 

 wine merchant in Sheep Street, who, I fancy, had 

 given up hunting before you had the hounds, bought 

 one (the finest dog I ever saw ; he stood about twenty- 

 eight inches) for five guineas. Stevenson used to 

 ride a blood mare every Sunday afternoon past our 

 house to Brixworth or one of the other villages north 

 of Northampton to spend his evening with some 

 friends. I always looked out for him about two 

 o'clock, and then waited for the bloodhound. He 

 was unchained about ten minutes later, and came on 

 throwing his tongue in grand style, up the middle of 

 the road. This went on for about two years. The 

 dog trotted about the town, and was one of the sights 

 of it, but he became old, bit a child and had to be put 

 away. I have never seen another like him ; no lumber 

 or coarseness as most bloodhounds have." 



Lord Southampton was at that time master of 



the Grafton country, and I often hunted with him. 

 VOL. i. 14 



