FIRST DAYS IN HANTS AND BERKS. 43 



put it on the dining-room table, and shortly after, 

 hearing a great scuffle in the room, I opened the 

 door to see what was going on. A tug-of-war over 

 the brush was in progress between my two favourite 

 terriers, who had sniffed the trophy on the table 

 and managed to pull it down. Needless to say, 

 there was not much of it left for the stuffer, and I 

 was very much vexed at losing my prize. 



With the Queen's Hounds I was out during the 

 mastership of Lord Cork, and when Harry King 

 was huntsman. Lord Cork received the appoint- 

 ment in Mr Gladstone's Government in 1866, 

 having previously been in office for one month 

 before Lord Russell's last Government made way 

 for that of Lord Derby. Harry King, who was the 

 son of Charles King, of Py tchley fame, was brought 

 up in the surroundings that have fostered the love 

 of horse and hound in the early years of so many 

 of our best huntsmen. As a lad he went into the 

 Warwickshire kennels, where Charles Cox was 

 then one of the whippers-in, and in 1836 he first took 

 service with the Royal Hounds. Gradually work- 

 ing his way up, he held the responsible post of 

 first whipper-in and acting huntsman during the 

 last years of Charles Davis's long service, when the 

 latter was too infirm for the more active duties in 

 the field. In this very difficult position King 

 acquitted himself well, and at last, after thirty 

 years in the kennels, he was appointed to succeed 

 Davis. 



Of the days which were known as the " London 



