28 REMINISCENCES OF 



i 

 Thomson's portrait was presented to him. Of 



course the county members were there, ex-officio, 

 but there were really barely a dozen other country 

 gentlemen, to use the term in its ordinary significa- 

 tion. There were a good many strangers, and a 

 large attendance of farmers, but not so many of 

 the latter as might have been expected, considering 

 the great popularity of Captain Thomson amongst 

 that class. With the squires the style of hunting 

 adopted by the late M.F.H. was not very popular. 

 By some speakers at the dinner a great deal was 

 made of the difference between ' hunting to ride ' 

 and ' riding to hunt,' as if the pleasures of hunting 

 and riding were distinct, or even opposed to each 

 other. Captain Thomson, though a brilliant horse- 

 man, for no one in England has a better seat or 

 better hands, had the misfortune not to show much 

 sport last year, when all the packs in the neigh- 

 bourhood were lucky. He appeared to be a perfect 

 master of the art of fox-hunting, yet his hounds 

 were never quite up to the mark, and were more 

 ready to follow than to hunt ; but they were not 

 always ready enough to follow, for I have seen them 

 hang in cover for a long time after the fox had gone 

 away and the huntsman was blowing his whistle 

 with all his might. The truth is, that a whistle is 

 a very bad instrument for getting hounds out of 

 cover ; the sound is so shrill that unless they can 

 see the huntsman they cannot perceive whence it 

 proceeds. The long journeys by road and the long 

 days' hunting the hounds so often had may have 



