The Rev. Dean Hole 103 



fat cob which is also the only thing his wife has to drive ; he 

 may be fat himself, or infirm ; he may honestly prefer to potter 

 — a thousand good and sufficient reasons might be given why 

 he should not ride hard or straight which would be quite 

 satisfactory to my mind. 



In the case of the parson it is perhaps different ; it would 

 not be conducive to mutual respect if the parishioners thought 

 him a funk and he was aware of the fact, and no one knows 

 better than the parson how ready his flock is to criticise ; so 

 no doubt Dean Hole thought the parson should ride straight as 

 an indication of strength of character, pluck, and so forth, even 

 at the risk of laying up the family cob. 



His views were much the same about women hunting. He 

 said he liked to see any number of them at the meet, but he 

 would wish only those who were really competent and ex- 

 perienced horsewomen to follow the pack across country. In 

 those days they wore the dangerous long habit, and only rode 

 on side-saddles, so that he had the argument that these two facts 

 added materially to their danger. This was true to some extent, 

 I dare say, but I disagree with him even then. One hears the 

 same sort of thing being said by the older generation to this day. 

 I contend that those who really desire to exclude the other half 

 of the human race from the field should stay at home them- 

 selves, and then their sensibilities would not be hurt. 



In his early days he hunted with the Rufford in the palmy 

 days of the " Dukeries," when their meets were " a thing to see 

 and marvel at," for nearly all the ducal homes in the neighbour- 

 hood were occupied by their owners, and peers of all the lesser 

 denominations abounded. Clumber, Welbeck, and Worksop 

 Manor all sent their contingents to the Rufford meets, which 

 would have delighted the hearts of latter-day tourists from the 

 other side of the Atlantic on account of the methods some of the 

 bigwigs saw fit to employ to come to the trysting-place. 



Lord Manners usually arrived in an open carriage, drawn by 

 four horses ridden by postilions in cherry-coloured jackets, not 

 to mention a couple of prancing outriders. The noble earl 

 seems to have outrivalled the late Lord George Sanger both in 

 the matter of taste and splendour. Perhaps it was only to be 

 expected, after all this, that Lord Manners' arrival was con- 

 siderably more impressive than his performance when mounted, 



