31S The Hunting Countries of England. 



might be a problem to us nowadays, but offered little 

 difficulty to them then. Their horses — said to have 

 been generally a small rough and hardy sort — were all 

 undipped, and would look upon a corner of a barn 

 and a bucket of oats as quite sufficient luxury ; while 

 as to the hounds they no doubt acted much as the 

 Sinnington pack of the present time, viz., when the 

 day^s work is over. 



Homeward go, eacli liis own "way. 

 The huntsman of that period, or even later, was paid 

 about fifty pounds a year, out of which he was expected 

 to mount himself. And his whip also took the field on 

 similar terms at a lower ratio. The same conditions, 

 only on a considerably higher scale of pay, continue 

 to form a part of the system of the Hunt up to the 

 present day — Parker receiving an honorarium little, 

 if anything, in excess of a huntsman^s pay in the 

 cut-^em-down countries, and out of it he has to keep 

 and provide himself and a couple of horses. This, 

 with such extraneous help as the gods from time to 

 time may shower upon him. Jack Parker has succeeded 

 in doing for three-and-thirty years — both his appear- 

 ance and his reputation proving that the task has been 

 well within his capacity. If, as local belief has it, he 

 was really the original, famous Handley Cross hunts- 

 man, he has certainly grown out of the hollow features 

 and half-starved limbs with which Mr. Leech depicted 

 James Pigg. Yet nationality, dialect, humour, and 

 natural instinct for his calling, all combine to enforce 

 his claim to a character that could only have been 

 drawn from some living type. In the field he is said 

 to be still as hard and keen as he, or his mighty 



