PRIVATE COURSING 131 



meeting in charge of an amateur, as, no matter how 

 capable a man ma\- be with dogs in the matter of 

 training and feeding, if he \i> a country bumpkin he is 

 sure to meet someone at the coursing meeting who 

 will take him in. He may get through a one-day 

 meeting, at which he arrives in the morning, all right ; 

 but if it is a two days' affair, and he has to stop in 

 the town, the hour of his trouble is sure to come. 



It happened about fifteen years ago that the 

 squire just referred to and I owned a few greyhounds 

 in partnership, and had some small measure of success 

 at the little local one-da\' fixtures. This aroused our 

 ambition, and we entered a brace of puppies in a 

 thirty-two dog stake at an important meeting held in 

 the North Riding of Yorkshire. I will not localise the 

 place, but may say that my friend and 1 took u[) our 

 quarters at Harrogate, the dogs being sent to the 

 scene of action in charge of the squire's gamekeeper, 

 who, though a good man, and a brave one, too, in his 

 place, was (so he found out afterwards) quite out of 

 place so far away from home. On the morning of 

 the first day's coursing man and dogs met us at the 

 railway station nearest to the ground, and it did not 

 take us long to find out that all was well with the 

 puppies. In fact their custodian told us he had gone 

 to bed at eight o'clock, with both dogs in his room. 



