26o FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



of a man in search of a horse. Mr. Ansell, of Leaming- 

 ton, too, bears a name which is well known in India. 

 Several of these gentlemen will supplement a weak 

 stable with a hireling that is likely to be quite as 

 good as anything that we have in our own boxes, and 

 that is, at three guineas a day, a by no means expen- 

 sive ride. But if the visitor is a man of judgment, 

 or thinks that he is, there is an alternative method 

 of mounting himself. There are the repositories of 

 Tattersall, and of Messrs. Warner, Sheppard and 

 Wade at Leicester. The gathering at the latter 

 place on a Saturday, when the hunting season is at 

 its height and one or two good studs are to be sold, 

 is worth seeing, and there at different times, when 

 some famous stud is to be dispersed, the leading 

 masters of hounds and the riders of Melton, Harborough 

 and Rugby, the Quorn, the Cottesmore, Mr. Fernie's 

 and the Pytchley meet on common ground. To 

 make the scene complete, the horses may be sold from 

 the rostrum by the secretary of a famous hunt or by 

 the master and huntsman of a well-known pack, 

 whose voice cheers on the slack bidder, as in other 

 scenes it rouses to keenness his own beautiful hounds. 

 Altogether the Leicester repository is a very pleasant 

 place if you do not happen to be hunting on Saturday. 

 Also it is an excellent place to buy a horse. You will 

 often have the chance of buying horses with a char- 

 acter from a stable of established reputation. If you 

 have any doubts as to soundness, you can have ex- 

 cellent advice from Mr. Simpkin, the hard-riding 

 veterinary surgeon of Harborough, who always attends 

 there. Such horses are seldom cheap, even if you 

 buy them at the end of the season and keep them until 

 the next. Every really first-rate horse is known, even 

 the good roarers or whistlers being marked down. 



