134 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



had his inclination turned that way, on Lord Althorp being 

 raised to the Peerage as Earl Spencer, but he declined the 

 honour. In 1849, Mr. Payne resigned to Lord Alford, who 

 died during the season of 1851, and Mr. Cust acted as manager. 

 The Hon. Frederick Yilliers, of Sulby, then had them, and was 

 especially lucky in his men, having Charles Payne as huntsman 

 and Jack Woodcock as whip. This regime, however, lasted but 

 a very short time, as Lord Hopetoun, fresh from Oxford, took 

 the country, and went on with the same staff under him, doing 

 the thing in first-rate style, and adding an extra day for the 

 woodlands. He was a good judge of hounds and horses, had 

 one of the best studs that was ever seen, even in this hard-riding 

 country, the celebrated prize-horse Brown Stout having been twice 

 in his possession, as he sold him to Lord Spencer and repurchased 

 him; a chestnut, Pirstflight (very rightly named), and a grey mare 

 were also well known during his mastership of the Pytchley. 

 Lord Hopetoun retired in 1856 (there is a gorse which he planted, 

 near Theddingworth, still called by his name), and the Hon. 

 Frederick Villiers and Hon.C.H. Cust became joint masters, with 

 Charles Payne as huntsman. Things went on thus until 1862, when 

 Lord Spencer took the country and hunted it entirely at his own 

 expense until 1864, when he resigned, and Mr. John Anstruther 

 Thomson gave up the Fife and took them. Charles Payne 

 left to go to Sir Watkin Wynn, at Wynstay, in 1865 ; then Mr. 

 Thomson took the horn himself, and showed such a succession 

 of wonderful sport as has seldom or never been equalled in any 

 country. Mr. Thomson, who was entered to hounds in Fife, 

 where his father was master, and had the advantage also of 

 studying the celebrated John Walker's way of doing business, 

 was quite the right man in the right place ; and although some 

 of the ultra fast ones did not perhaps like his patient, perse- 

 vering way of making his hounds work for their fox, on a bad 

 scenting day, instead of trying to gallop him to death, they 

 soon found that he was quite master of the game. He had 

 kept both stag-hounds and foot-beagles when in the army, and is 



