232 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



the best hunter he ever owned was the noted show 

 hcrse Whisky. This was a 14-stone hunter that 

 won seventy first prizes in the show-yard, one 

 second prize, and twenty-four champion prizes. 

 Whisky wound up the season of igo6 by winning Lord 

 Tredegar's prize of £20 for the best 14-stone hunter, 

 a sporting event decided over a stiff line of hunting- 

 country ; which he jumped faultlessly. Although 

 Mr Stokes is not seen in the saddle so often as years 

 ago, he is well represented by his only son Ernest, 

 who hunts as often as he can with the Ouorn, 

 Pytchley, and Mr Fernie's, having the advantage 

 of being beautifully mounted. Mr Ernest also 

 hunts his father's pack of harriers, bought from 

 Mrs " Squire " Cheape — boasting the choicest 

 blood which has won the ribbons on the flags at 

 Peterborough. 



The motor throbbing impatiently at the door, 

 warned us that the horses had gone on to covert, 

 and Mr Ernest at the wheel was watching the clock 

 that said it was time to be off to Sibbertoft, the 

 best part of five miles away. The road was twisty, 

 and the view a fine stretch of undulating grass, 

 neutral ground for the Pytchley and Mr Fernie's, 

 for the most part characteristic of Leicestershire 

 with racing fences and shallow ditches. Hounds 

 had already arrived on the grass in the middle of 

 the village, a bitch pack of fifteen and a half couples, 

 a keen, wiry-looking lot, with ears unrounded as 

 Lord Spencer would have it during his famous 

 masterships in the 'seventies and 'nineties. Also the 

 hunt staff have six buttons on the coat tails, a relic 

 of the great statesman's livery. Frank Freeman 

 sat his bang-tail blood horse with an expression of 

 solemnity, as did Tom Firr ; turning over in his mind 

 some fox-hunting problem which is to insure the 



