FOX-HUNTING JEHUS 177 



his favourite sitting-room at Holywell Hall, we re- 

 member Tom Hennesy's crooked whip, about which 

 he relates the following story of how he became its 

 possessor : " * If you'll promise me that you'll take 

 it clean out of the country, and never bring it into 

 these parts again, I'll make you a present of it.' 

 On these terms I became 

 the happy possessor of the 

 dog - legged stick ; and, 

 though I have driven 

 hundreds of miles with it 

 on other roads, it has 

 never been a single mile 

 on the London side of 

 Stamford." 



It is a fortunate fact 

 that the sporting spirit 

 still animates the Jehu of 

 to-day, and the wish to 

 excel prompts the leisured class with means, to 

 revive the '' glories of the road." Although the four- 

 horse coach cannot compete with the locomotive 

 and motor-car as a means of transit, coaching 

 ranks amongst the most manly sports an Enghsh- 

 man can take up. To such thorough sportsmen 

 we owe the institution of the summer passenger- 

 coach, running daily on the breezy downs and sunn3'- 

 uplands within distance of fashionable coast towns 

 and inland resorts. This mode of travelling at a 

 moderate pace amidst the beauties of scenery, is 

 one of the most pleasant pastimes to be found in 

 England — restful to a nervous system overwrought 

 by the craze for speed in this hurrying age. 



To any one of sporting instincts with an ear for 

 music, there is no finer trotting march than that 

 played by the iron heels of four horses with equal 



M 



Mr. C. T. S. Birch Reynardson. 



