The Rev. Dean Hole 107 



and then hunted regularly with the Bicester and Heythrop. 

 In after years he hunted with any pack he could get out with, 

 but only had one day with the Quorn. It was a great day for 

 him, and he never forgot the delight he felt in galloping across 

 the elastic turf after the heavy clay countries he had been 

 accustomed to. To use his own robust metaphor, taking fences 

 was like " leaping from a spring-board to an athlete." 



Literary and artistic people always got on well with him. 

 He and John Leech once went to Ireland together for a holiday 

 and enjoyed themselves very much. Leech sketching everything 

 he came across, including a sneeze and the smell of Cork harbour, 

 while Hole wrote an account of their wanderings which was 

 afterwards published. They even hunted together sometimes, 

 but Leech was no thruster and told Hole that his ideal mount 

 was one on which he could carry an umbrella in a hailstorm. 

 One reason why Leech did not take many risks was that he had 

 once broken his arm and was afraid that a second fracture 

 might ruin his drawing. He hacked quietly about, watching 

 the field with his keen artist's eyes that saw so much that others 

 missed. 



While the field was jumping a fence on the way from one 

 covert to another one day, he drew Hole aside to watch each 

 person's way of taking the business, and told his companion to 

 notice that no two riders and no two horses would be quite 

 alike in their methods ; and sure enough, they were not. Apart 

 from the broad difference between those that jumped big and 

 landed wildly, and those that crashed sluggishly through 

 rather than over, there were a thousand subtle differences, such 

 as the riders who went at it with a great show of determination 

 but did not like it in their hearts, and managed to communicate 

 their faintness of heart to their horses ; and those whose joyous 

 determination seemed to almost lift reluctant mounts over the 

 obstacle by sheer force of will. 



Leech makes Hole appear in several Punch pictures of the 

 day, notably one in which a dashing youth describes a capital 

 run he has had " with only five falls." Thackeray, Sir John 

 Tenniel, and four editors of Punch were among Hole's friends, 

 and he dined at the famous Punch round table at which forth- 

 coming cartoons were discussed. I believe he was the only 

 outsider who ever attended this editorial dinner, with the 



