1 76 Saddle and Sirloin. 



severing in their homage. Stephen Wood, who was 

 blind, followed the hounds at 84 without a guide. 

 Those who do not " dread to speak of '98" may re- 

 member how well the Rev. E. Stokes of Blaby rode, 

 and how a little bell was rung by his attendant when- 

 ever there was a fence. A blind officer performed 

 still more boldly with The Duke's, but a friend's 

 voice was sufficient for him. George Kirton attended 

 "the unkennelling of the fox" ("Sylvanus Urban" is 

 rather funny among terms of art) till he was turned a 

 hundred. Geordie Robinson's enthusiasm carried him 

 through many a hard day on foot with the Sherborne, 

 and under the belief that he was a duke, he bedecked 

 himself with ribbons and laurel. He was, however, as 

 nothing to Tom Roberts, who hunted harriers at Kir- 

 mond, in Lincolnshire. Calves he had none, and he 

 was equally ill off below the elbow. Still he had a 

 voice of great volume, and a little excrescence like 

 the joint of a thumb on one elbow, which seemed to 

 answer for hands, and everything else. Ned of the 

 West was an excellent master of harriers ; and glasses, 

 engraved with horses and dogs, were his household 

 specialty. Bridges divided his allegiance between 

 harriers and silk-handkerchiefs ; but there was nothing 

 of the man milliner about him for all that, as he once 

 rode down the Brighton Devil's Dyke at full gallop, 

 for a bet of 5OO/. Even in their last hours the peculiar 

 tastes of these worthies did not leave them. John 

 Hornby was buried in 1739, near Newmarket, wearing 

 his jockey cap " by express desire," and with a whip 

 in his hand ; and far more recently one Thomas 

 Phillips, a brewer, was carried to his grave by all the 

 huntsmen and whips of Berkshire. The passion of 

 his life had been to amass pads, and if any resurrec- 

 tionist could dig down to him at the churchyard 

 of Speen, near Newbury, they would find his gristly 

 fingers still grasping that relic of a Craven " Charley." 

 There is no need to speak of the scenery through 



