Lord spencer s Mastership. 189 



up the reins let drop by Mr. Najlor. Not the least among 

 other advantages to be anticipated from, his so doing was 

 that it gave rise to a hope of that fixity and permanence 

 which is one of the chief glories of an old-established 

 pack of foxhounds ; one which has been so marked a 

 feature in the Badminton^ the Grafton, the Berkeley_, and 

 the Fitzwilliam Hunts, and which has been so sadly 

 lacking with two crack packs of England, the Pytchley 

 and the Quorn. But as in the case of Man himself, a 

 Hunt ^' never is but always to be blessed ;'^ and it was 

 decreed that the ^' P.H/^ was not to escape the common 

 lot. After the lapse of three short years, Lord Spencer's 

 constitution not fairly settled down in the saddle of 

 endurance, had placed its veto upon further experiments 

 with the physical power, and the edict went forth that 

 there must be a cessation from anxiety and over- exertion, 

 and that rest must be found in a more temperate climate 

 than was to be met with, during the trying months of an 

 English winter. 



Looking back upon the infantile days of the " P.H/' 

 Master of 1868, he who witnessed the blooding of 

 '^ Master Jack Spencer " by Charles Payne in Harleston 

 Park, little thought that the frightened shrinking' child 

 of four years old on the pony so carefully led by a 

 groom, and sedulously watched by a governess, was to 

 develop into the ''Ked Earl,"" one of Ireland's greatest 

 Viceroys, and one of England's most determined riders. 

 Six years after this, while standing near Althorp House 

 on a November afternoon, ^^ Master Jack " watched with 

 no little excitement the hounds careering: across the 

 Park in the early part of a run memorable for its 

 termination by candle-light. But it was not until he 



