THE HISTORY OF THE BEL VOIR HUNT 



cricket, and other pastimes give us a Spartan tradition to 

 begin with, whereas the associations of the Latin races 

 predispose them to luxury. 



An Italian diplomatist who was returning from Abyssinia 

 once said to me, after he had been conducted round Aden, 

 and had seen our officers playing polo and cricket : " Ah, I 

 see, our officer in hot climate, he sit in the caf(6, and he smoke 

 cigarettes, and drink the absinth, and he die ; your officer, 

 he play polo and cricket, and he live" 



But to return to Will Goodall and the Belvoir. On April 

 the nth he had a holiday, and he employed it as huntsmen 

 generally do, in going to see how another of his craft worked 

 in the field. Mr. Burrows had succeeded Mr. Henley Greaves, 

 and had left rather suddenly, so Lord Fitzwilliam's hounds 

 were invited to meet at Coles Lodge, in a wild and hilly but 

 very beautiful hunting country, in the best of the Cottesmore 

 Tuesday district, now probably the most fashionable in Eng- 

 land. Goodall, speaking of this, says : — 



^* Tuesday, April nth. — Lord Fitzwilliam's hounds met at 

 Coles Lodge in the Cottesmore country, Mr. Burrows having 

 given up the country. Mr. Sebright, the huntsman, was as 

 fresh as ever ; he brought a capital pack of hounds, which 

 hunted beautifully and gave great satisfaction, but the wind 

 was so high they could not do much. There was supposed 

 to be one thousand people out. George Carter whipped in." ^ 



Sebright's career was then drawing to its close. He had 

 been the intimate friend of Goosey, and tradition has it that 

 the two hard-headed old huntsmen had many a bout in 

 the evening, when " they puzzled out the sort " together. At 

 all events, Belvoir had some puppies by Shiner, a beautiful 

 hound with the long Fitzwilliam head, one of the handsomest 

 to be seen in a modern fox-hound. According to Goodall, 

 Tom Sebright, as he called him, had not a very good day, 

 and we can imagine the exclamation of " Od, rabbit it 

 altogether " and the invocation of " Rags and garters " the 

 old man would indulge in. Will Goodall seems, as I think 

 the study of his pedigrees will show, to have subscribed to 

 ' Goodall's Diary. 

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