MR. EDWARD FAIRFAX STUDD 165 



a year before his death he complained to me of his 

 hat and boots liaving been hidden to prevent his 

 going out in the rain to watch the pack on the hilL 

 His was a kindly and faithful nature. Devoted to 

 his master, who treated him as a friend, he never 

 forgot his position. Yet he spoke his mind freely, as 

 when he saw Mr. Studd for the first time in a pair of 

 brown polo boots, which had just then come into 

 fashion, and asked him : " Master, whatever makes 

 you wear them foppish boots ? " He appears on the 

 extreme left in the picture facing this page. 



Another useful retainer at Oxton was Robinson the 

 stud-groom, who was always at hand when a fox had 

 to be taken by the scruff of the neck out of an earth. 

 He is still to the fore, and for years past has brought 

 his master's children successively into the field. 



It was in Mr. Studd's mastership that the western- 

 most counties were visited by the terrific snowstorm 

 commonly known as the " Blizzard in the West,'* 

 which wrought such fearful havoc. Plantations were 

 decimated, roofs blown off, vessels torn from their 

 moorings and wrecked, the postal and telegraph 

 system paralysed ; travellers by road and rail had to 

 stay where they were or struggle to the nearest 

 shelter, cattle, sheep and ponies, and indeed some 

 human beings, died of exposure, and whole trains 

 were snowed up. From the evening of that day, 

 Monday, no train reached Plymouth from up the 

 line until the following Saturday. 



The storm occurred on Monday the 9th March, 

 1891, on which date the hounds met at Haldon Race 

 Stand. The wind was bitterly cold from the north- 

 east, but we found a brace of foxes and hunted one 

 for a while with a fair scent. About noon snow began 

 to fall and the wind increased in force. Still we 



