THE HISTORY OF THE BEL VOIR HUNT 



could. It was his custom to be always " creeping on " — his 

 own expression — in order to poach a start, a trick not un- 

 known in our day, but which spoils as much sport with 

 fox-hounds as anything. He was not raised to the peerage 

 till 1 82 1, but he is so generally spoken of by his title that 

 it is more convenient so to name him. 



Of him Nimrod remarks : — 



" All those who knew this intellectual sportsman also knew 

 the natural gaiety of his disposition and how fond he was 

 of a joke, and particularly when he himself had the best 

 of it. . . . On one occasion it is told of him that, having 

 the lead in a quick thing, and no one else on his heels, he 

 came to a park paling which no horse could leap. His 

 quick eye, however, espied a small bridle gate in which the 

 park keeper had left his key ; so popping through it quickly 

 his lordship turned the key after him, put it into his pocket, 

 and * bade the field good-bye.' On another, when in the 

 same enviable situation, i.e. having the lead, he leaped into 

 a deep pit brimful of water. As he was in the act of 

 swimming out of it he observed a man on foot warning 

 those who were following him of their danger. ' Hold your 

 tongue,' roared his lordship ; ' we shall have it full in a 

 minute.' " ^ 



The point of these two jokes is obvious, but it may be 

 doubted whether Forester's natural gaiety was shared by 

 the rest of the field, and readers of Sponge may not have 

 forgotten how Surtees has borrowed the latter story for that 

 keenest yet most selfish of sportsmen the Earl of Scamper- 

 dale. Nimrod, whose admiration for Lord Forester was 

 unbounded, also mentions that his lordship was much given 

 to quizzing a " slow top." ^ The contemporary definition of 

 a slow top is a man "with a front to his bridle, or with a 

 martingale ; on a country-made saddle, with knobs on his 

 stirrups ; with a saddle cloth ; in a straight-cut coat ; in 

 leather breeches or military spurs." ^ But this is the darker 



^ Nimrod's Hunting Reminiscences, p. 164. 

 ^ Nimrod's Hunting Tour, p. 552. 

 3 Ibid. 



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