The Sport of Our (^Ancestors 



everything he is worth, Great Coram Street and all, to 

 catch a fox without the assistance of Pigg ; and the one 

 thing denied to him, rich, healthy, enthusiastic, well-versed 

 in woodcraft, is just that little touch of resolution that is 

 wanted to carry him over the fences, take him to his Hounds, 

 and make him the proudest and happiest man in England. 

 Laugh one must, yet there is a tear in the laughter. How 

 on occasion he must have envied James Pigg his undeniable 

 nerve, an attribute not to be bought with all the wealth 

 of all the counting-houses in Europe. 



His lack of nerve he could not control. He does not 

 seem to have tried to control his fondness for port wine 

 and brandy and water. Over-indulgence in the pleasures 

 of the table was near to undoing him more than once, as, 

 for instance, on the night when everything after dinner 

 suddenly became oblivion until he was aroused by the cold 

 water in the swimming bath at my Lord Bramber's of 

 Ongar Castle. Perhaps it would be charitable to put this 

 down to the manners and customs of the age in which he 

 lived. But Mr. Jorrocks had another weakness, appar- 

 ently common to other ages, which also nearly destroyed 

 him. He could not resist the temptation of trying to get 

 his name into print as a successful M.F.H. How edifying 

 for his city associates to read of their merchant friend's 

 career as M.F.H. , and to see him handed down to posterity 

 in the company of Musters and Meynell and Corbet ! The 

 letter in which he invited the great Pomponius Ego to 

 come down and write ' the puif direct ' is worth preserving. 

 26 



