Col. Anstrtithei^ Thomsons Mastership, i 7 1 



task to be undertaken by the man of ordinary acquire- 

 ments ; nor should it, if possible, ever fall to the lot of 

 one individual. At no time, however, did the task seem 

 too much for Captain Thomson's shoulders, and by put- 

 ting the same principle in practice in either case, that is 

 to say letting alone as much as possible, he secured sport 

 for his followers, and won the goodwill of all who hunted 

 with him. 



The average daily sport was probably never higher than 

 during the first five seasons of Mr. Thomson^s Master- 

 ship; but the great Waterloo run of February 2nd, 1866,. 

 so completely threw every other into the shade, that no 

 other will be referred to in this brief memoir of the hero 

 of a day which has earned for itself a reputation 

 only to be equalled by that of the famous Billesden 

 Coplow day. 



The moroing had been wet, and the wind was south- 

 west, when a goodly field appeared at Arthingworth 

 just as the weather began to improve and look well for 

 scent. For an hour or so little was done with two or 

 three short-running foxes in Loatland, and soon after two 

 o^clock the word was given for Waterloo. With a word 

 and a wave of the hand from the Captain, in went seven- 

 teen and a half couple of hounds, eager to find, and little 

 dreaming of the day's work before them. It soon be- 

 came clear that the animal was at home ; but he lay so 

 close in a heap of dead sticks that the hounds had to be 

 taken all round the cover and back to the top before he 

 could be persuaded to move. Old Morris, the second 

 horseman, then " viewed " him away towards the tunnel ; 

 when swinging to the left he went over the brook and 

 spinney at Arthingworth, and made for Langboro. 



