352 SPORTING STORIES 



Secretaries of State were figures as familiar at a meet of 

 hounds as at a meeting of the Cabinet. Sir Robert 

 Walpole, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Althorp, Lord 

 Palmerston, Earl Granville, were all hard riders to hounds, 

 and loved no sport better than the chase. Mr Gladstone, 

 in his earlier days, was to be seen mounted on his old white 

 mare, galloping after hounds with his friend and Parlia- 

 mentary patron, the Duke of Newcastle. And I have met 

 those who remember the " Grand Old Man " at a still 

 earlier period of his career, in Berwickshire, keeping close 

 up to Willie Hay of Dunse Castle during a hard run. 

 And this, let me tell you, was no mean feat, for Willie 

 Hay, when mounted on his famous hunter, Crafty, despite 

 his welter-weight, was hard to beat. In fact, he nearly 

 always led the field with Crafty under him ; and after a 

 bursting hour and twenty minutes the horse seemed as 

 fit as his master, for both were thoroughbred. Willie, to 

 distinguish him from others of his numerous clan, was 

 known as " Hay of Drumelzier." He came of Tweeddale 

 blood on his mother's side, and there was a touch of the 

 ancestral reiver about him. He was present at Waterloo 

 as a spectator, like the Duke of Richmond ; but tradition 

 has it that, unable to control himself at the sound of battle, 

 he dashed incontinently into the fray and rode right 

 through one of the cavalry charges unhurt — more fortunate 

 than his younger brother, an officer in a Highland regiment, 

 who was slain on the slopes of Mont St Jean. 



The late Earl of Wemyss, then Lord Elcho, was another 

 Scotsman who had a reputation for dare-devil riding. As 

 a youngster he had " made things hum " to such a tune 

 that his father found it necessary to screw him up tightly. 

 But this did not prevent him from getting a pack of 

 hounds together in 1830. He had the misfortune to lose 

 his huntsman at the commencement of his first season — 

 the man broke his leg, and died from the effects of the 

 accident — and Lord Elcho hunted the hounds himself In 

 this capacity he showed that he could combine with hard 

 riding a creditable amount of Scottish canniness and 

 caution. 



In Joe Hogg, moreover, he had a capable first whip, a 



