396 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



best, or nearly the best, gallop of the Quorn (I was privi- 

 leged to witness) last season. The first fox went away 

 unpursued. The second stayed in covert until he could 

 make his point. Then made it with far-reaching vigour 

 to Tilton. In practice I feel certain, as far as my obser- 

 vation goes, that no more rash and hopeless task can be 

 undertaken than, as we see occasionally, a few odd couple 

 laid on a line on the chance of their comrades, at present 

 otherwise engaged, catching them up in reasonable course. 

 Apropos of remarks above written on the scent-giving 

 properties of the horse, it has come to my hearing that a 

 certain pack of staghounds were last week nearly called 

 out to hunt up a valuable hunter lost and at large. This 

 much at all events, though scarcely more credible, can 

 be vouched for as fairly correct, and I hold the proofs in 

 my hand. Understand, then, that on Thursday of last 

 week one of our leading jockeys,^ whose dapper little figure 

 and merry face have for some seasons been familiar to 

 the Pytchley field, gave a friend a mount with Mr. Walter 

 Greene's staghounds — a pack that, hunting the Bury St. Ed- 

 munds district, are not only easily reached from Newmarket, 

 but afford the professional racing men many of their best 

 hunting gallops. The friend took a cropper into a big 

 wood. By the time he had recovered himself and his hat 

 and his whip, the horse was out of sight, and not even 

 with the assistance of his host could he find any trace of 

 the steed. There was nothing for it but to " foot it " 

 home, while the unhappy owner continued his search all 

 that day, continuing with a thirty - mile quest on the 

 morrow. No sign and no news till Saturday, when late 

 in the evening a telegram came apprising him that his 

 horse (no, his wife's, which made the long period of 

 anxiety more acutely dilBcult for the poor man to bear) 

 had been found in one of the big tracts of woodland with 

 which the fertile country of Suffolk abounds, in a wood — 

 Sapiston Grove — belonging, I believe, to the Duke of 

 Grafton. The hapless beast was fast tangled by his 

 bridle, and during these days had endeavoured to assuage 

 the pangs of hunger by gnawing the bark of such trees 



^ The late George Barrett. 



