14 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



make a horse go across country if he had any jump 

 or go in him. Probably no man in England was 

 his superior either in riding to hounds or teaching 

 a young horse. Equally well known in Leicester- 

 shire, was his brother George, bred and born 

 in the Belvoir Vale, few men having left greater 

 reputations behind them. Alec Goodman was 

 another celebrity with hounds after his steeple- 

 chase days were over, sailing across country with 

 the nerve of a boy, possessing that same quiet 

 confidence, combined with a good eye for country, 

 which carried him through many a hard race and 

 long-sustained run. The late Duchess of Hamilton, 

 when Lady Mary Montague, rode straight to hounds 

 with few superiors for courage and horsemanship, 

 and when the Duchess chose George Carter as her 

 partner at the tenants' ball at Kimholton, she 

 paid a compliment to the sport she loved so well. 

 The Marquis of Huntly, not content with keeping 

 plenty of foxes in his coverts at Orton, was a real 

 good man across country in George Carter's time, 

 as were his brothers, the late Lord Douglas and 

 Lord Esme Gordon, together with the Ladies Gordon 

 to support the family name." 



Somewhere in the 'forties my father held a first 

 curacy to the Rev. George Wingfield at Glatton, 

 a village between Stilton and Huntingdon, lodging 

 at the Woolpack Inn, Connington Lane, on the 

 Great North Road. The Inn was kept by people 

 of the name of Jenkins, whose daughter married a 

 Percival, proprietor of the Haycock Inn at Wands- 

 ford, in the palmy days when over a hundred 

 hunters and coach horses were stabled there. To 

 the Woolpack Inn the Fitzwilliam hounds and 

 hunt staff came over-night when hunting the wood- 

 lands towards Huntingdon, and Tom Sebright 



