INTRODUCTION vii 



delighted to find the mine from which Mr. Surtccs extracted 

 two of his most famous gems, to which he has given such 

 a sparkhng setting in the letters of Mr. Puflington to Lord 

 Scampcrdale, and of Dick Bragg to his friend Benjamin Brick. 



Scarcity of Foxes and subscriptions in The Thurlow country 

 caused Cook to pack his carpet bag and return to Hampshire, 

 where he succeeded Mr. Thomas Butler in The Jlastcrship 

 of The Hambledon Hounds, remaining there for three seasons. 

 It does not appear whether he had his own hoimds in these 

 two countries, but it is certain that in 1808 he brought his 

 own pack to Essex, and hunted it there for five seasons in 

 a manner that landed him in tlie front rank of huntsmen. 

 He now began to pluck the fruit of his apprenticeship served 

 on the plouglis of Cambridgeshire and on the flints of his 

 native countj^ and he had got a pack of Foxliounds together 

 which must have afforded his followers some rare moments. 

 He enjoyed the not very common knack of combining personal 

 popularity with an unflinching discharge of his duties in the 

 hunting-field, being a prince of good fellows at the dinner 

 table, who could carry any quantity of claret with impunity, 

 and make " the corks fly as fast as the Foxes." He had 

 for his whipper-in one Jack Cole, whose richly coloured 

 countenance bore silent but eloquent testimony to the death 

 of many a bottle of gin, but who was none the less of great 

 repute in his profession. It would be interesting to know 

 what these two convivial souls would have said or thought 

 had they not very long ago seen a modern M.F.H. and his 

 men calling for tea and buns on the way home from a hard 

 day's hunting. 



These were brave days in The Roothings when " Old 

 Cocky " steered his hounds to victory by day, and took the 

 chair by night at the Dunmow gatherings ; but tliey were 

 to come to an end all too soon, for his resources not permitting 

 him to continue, he gave up the country and sold his hounds 

 to Mr. Archer Houblon in 1813, after five years of unbroken 

 success crowded with many triumphs. It seems a pity that 



