THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 345 



" You will have nothing to pay," resumed Sir John ; 

 " Holding will take the whole off your hands." 



" Sir Frederick, or his brother ? " inquired our hero. 



" His brother," replied Sir John ; " and as you have 

 often said you should like to take what you call a tour of 

 hunting countries, I should recommend you to select this 

 winter for the purpose. As you avow your intention of 

 keeping hounds yourself, you may profit much by the 

 plan I propose. You will be able to observe closely the 

 conduct of both masters and servants in the several countries 

 you visit, profiting by what is good, and marking what 

 you may consider to be the reverse." 



" Your advice is good," replied our hero ; " I will at 

 once act upon it. In the first place, I shall be quite at 

 ease in my mind, from the reflection that I shall not be 

 drawing too fast on my banker ; and, in the next, I shall 

 no doubt profit by what I see in various countries, and in 

 the various sportsmen whom I shall meet in them." 



Shortly after this conversation took place, Frank Raby 

 commenced his tour, fixing upon Cheshire as his start, 

 and for this very good reason : he was informed that the 

 hounds which hunted the country were at that period 

 under the management of a first-rate sportsman of the 

 school of that day, no other than George Home, whose 

 family had been long seated in this aristocratic country. 

 Nor was he misinformed on this subject : he found a most 

 effective kennel of hounds, with a truly scientific sports- 

 man at their head, and he also found the surest test of 

 merit that his blood was sought after in some of the first 

 establishments of those days. But for the country he 

 could not say much. Having had a taste of Leicestershire, 

 Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, he found himself 

 cramped, as it were, in the small fields of Cheshire ; 

 neither were some of his horses at all calculated for its 

 fences, which were, for the most part, hedges placed on 

 narrow banks, or "cops," as they are called there, 

 strengthened by a deep and often blind ditch. This kind 

 of fence not only requires a practised horse, very quick 

 and ready with his legs, as he must spring from the cop, 

 when the ditch is on the landing side, but it also requires 

 a practised and good horseman to get him over it with 

 safety, when he becomes what is termed " pumped out " 

 by the pace. Temper, likewise, and that of a peculiar 

 nature, is almost indispensable here ; that is to say, the 



