14 REMINISCENCES OF 



fox-hunting, and by your presence here this evening 

 you give your countenance and support to the great 

 national sport of fox-hunting. I need not put you 

 in mind of the joys of the chase, or recount to you 

 the advantages of fox-hunting, either commercially 

 or socially, but, as far as I am individually con- 

 cerned, had it not been for fox-hunting I should 

 probably have been unknown to most of you, and 

 certainly I should never have had the honour of 

 standing in this position. A few years since, when 

 Lord Spencer resigned the mastership of the Pytchley 

 Hounds, our old friend, Major Why te- Melville, wrote 

 to me, saying he thought I should like to gallop over 

 the grass grounds of Northamptonshire, and hunt 

 the fox in Rockingham Forest. I had no doubt that 

 I should like it, but I reflected that if the pleasures 

 were great, so were the responsibilities, and I hesi- 

 tated before I durst venture to accept so large an 

 establishment. My wife, however, had the casting 

 vote, and she gave it in favour of Pytchley. Of 

 course I knocked under, and became Master of the 

 Pytchley, and when I got there I found that the 

 difficulties and responsibilities had not been a bit 

 over-rated, for I am sure the Master of the Pytchley 

 Hounds will always find plenty of occupation both for 

 body and mind. When I first began to hunt hounds, 

 twenty-two years since, my old friend, Percy Williams, 

 my brother soldier and brother huntsman, gave me a 

 bit of excellent advice. He said, " Keep your temper, 

 and stick to the line ". I never forgot that, but have 

 always tried to act up to it. I always tried not to be 



