LOiNG POINTS AND THE HEYTHROP. 207 



brokers. City merchants, barristers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, 

 and, in fact, professional men of all sorts, with a big sprinkling 

 of tradesmen, not only from the West End, but from the City 

 and occasionally from the suburbs. The squirearchy within 

 reach of town has been so greatly replaced by the business 

 magnate of every variety that the old-fashioned land-owning 

 hunting man was not very numerous when I hunted from 

 London, and the more rustic part of the fields was chiefly 

 composed of farmers, or of the sons of business men who pre- 

 ferred farming and rural life generally to following in their 

 fathers' City footsteps. As for boxing horses from London on 

 a hunting morning, the practice had practically disappeared 

 at least five-and-twenty years ago. In the mid-Victorian period 

 there was a good deal of boxing to the " Queen's," but things 

 had changed greatly with the royal pack in the last few years 

 of its existence, and, as happens in ©very other hunt, a 

 majority of the boxing had become local. There were, say, five- 

 and-twenty years ago, not many suitable morning trains from 

 London to hunting centres, by which horses could be taken, 

 and there was often a long delay after hunting before the 

 horse could be taken back. The upshot was that those who 

 hunted from town themselves kept their horses in the country, 

 and had them sent on to meets, the rider usually availing 

 himself of a station fly. When I used to see the Burstow I 

 had an occasional companion — who now holds high military 

 rank and has won the D.S.O. — but on three days out of 

 four I left my London quarters long before daylight, and 

 therefore was more than once deceived by the weather, there 

 being rain in town while in the country there was snow. Still, 

 I do not remember being stopped by weather for more than 

 an hour or two in that country, for the winter was singularly 

 open and mild, and the Burstow " crowd " was such a cheery 

 one, and so optimistic, that an hour of delay meant that the 

 time never hung heavily. Indeed, although it is more than 

 twenty years ago, I have never forgotten the bonhomie and 

 good feeling in this particular hunt. The stranger was 

 quickly approached and given every chance of making 

 acquaintances, and after a day or two, v/hen members of the 

 hunt found I was coming from London, invitations to break- 

 fast on hunting mornings, or to " dine and sleep " before 



