348 SPORTING REMINISCENCES [1845 to 



accepted ; and, during the time lie has been 

 their master, they have had a better succession 

 of sport than any other pack in the county. 



Mr. Whieldon began hunting at a very early 

 age, when living at Wetton-place in North- 

 amptonshire, in the heart of the Pytchley coun- 

 try, and as a very " small boy" was blooded 

 by Mr. Osbaldeston, then in his zenith, after a 

 clipping run from Dodford Holt, and killed in 

 his father's park. 



When at school at Winchester (from 1830 

 to 1837) with his brother George, now the 

 popular Squire of Wyke Hall, near Wincan- 

 ton, he kept a few harriers, and had many a 

 run on Twyford Down before breakfast. Mr. 

 Whieldon then hunted regularly in North- 

 amptonshire in the reigns of Mr. Osbaldeston, 

 Sir Harry Goodriche, Mr. George Payne, and 

 Lord Chesterfield, in the glorious days of Jack 

 Stevens and Will Deny ; and since then he 

 has had a turn in nearly every country south 

 of the Trent, and has always shown himself 

 to be a good and keen sportsman, for, as 

 Humphry Pearce, his huntsman, rightly and 

 quaintly observed, "there is no Mary Ann 

 about my master." 



George Humphry stayed with Mr. Whiel- 



southweii. don untn lg61j when he was guc _ 



