58 The PytcJiley Hunt, Past and Present, [chap. it. 



"Xext came the parson, 

 The parson, the parson, 

 Next came the parson, 



The shortest way to seek. 



" And like a phantom lost to view, 

 From point to point the parson flew. 

 The parish at a pinch can do 

 Without him for a week." 



So sings Whyte-Melville, tlie Horace of hunting-poets, 

 who at all times had a rhyme to spare in favour of the 

 black coat and white tie that marked the clerical 

 sportsman. Of the four rectors now to pass before the 

 reader of these pages, not one was qualified to excuse 

 himself to his bishop for his hunting-ways, ^^ that he 

 never was in the same field with the hounds. ^^ Long 

 and fast must they have run before they out-stripped 

 that Eector of Lamport, who some sixty years since, 

 had no superior as a horseman, and who was -too thankful 

 to pick up at a reduced figure the animal that was " one 

 too many '^ for some less skilful rider. The father of 

 four sons, three of whom could find their way across 

 Northamptonshire rather better than most men, the Rev. 

 Vere Isham called no man master for nerve, and for 

 keeping a good place on a rough mount. Kind, courteous, 

 and pleasant with all^ not a member of the Hunt was 

 regarded with greater respect, and the " coarse-mouthed 

 Squire '^ (Osbaldeston) on one occasion received from 

 him a lesson in '' soft answers " which he would have 

 done well not to forget. " Where the h — are you coming 

 to, you d — d fool, you ? ^' exclaimed the Pytchley 

 master, when one day the Rector of Lamport had a diflfi- 

 culty in stopping a hard-pulling horse. From some, an 

 address couched in such language would have provoked 



