136 HUNTING THE FOX 



for this. Sir Peter would appear to have given the 

 word to move off from the Meet, and the name of 

 the covert to be drawn, to his first whipper-in Tom 

 Dansey, instead of to his Huntsman, and to have 

 called Tom by his surname instead of by his 

 Christian name. Later on the Huntsman also 

 calls him Dansey. He would surely have called 

 him Tom. Mr. Masefield also writes of a pink 

 coat and a crop. Perhaps these words are now 

 sanctioned by general use. Most of us, however, 

 who were blooded in the 'seventies, would naturally 

 talk of a red coat and a whip. Such trifles seem 

 hardly worth mentioning, and they do not detract 

 one jot or one tittle from the fame of Mr. Masefield, 

 who has alone succeeded in writing of a run which 

 would make even the most bloodthirsty Huntsman 

 want the Fox to beat the Hounds at the finish. 

 Perhaps this Fox saved his life because Sir Peter's 

 Hounds were " great chested " and " broad in 

 shoulder," and therefore lacking in a sufficient turn 

 of speed to pull their Fox down in the open. Be 

 this as it may, the account of the run holds the 

 reader breathless from find to finish, and conveys 

 an atmosphere of animal and country life in a 

 manner that can hardly be equalled. 



Let us conclude with one who has gone. There 

 is no writer of Fox-hunting songs whose ring sounds 

 more merrily than that of Mr. Egerton Warburton 

 of Arley Hall, a Cheshire squire like Mr. Bromley 



