2 20 The PytcJiley Hunt, Past and P^^esent. 



by niglit. The accident to his Huntsman having forced 

 upon him the welcome necessity of carrying the horn^ he 

 increased the responsibihty at the same time that he 

 enhanced the enjoyment of his position ; the only draw- 

 back to which was his too great anxiety to show sport. 

 Never sparing himself, his horses or his hounds, he got 

 into the habit of making longer days than was good for 

 either^ and the '' one more draw," when it was really time 

 to go home, eventually told its tale upon all three. Nor 

 did long frosts and heavy snows serve to keep the esta- 

 blishment undisturbed. " Out you go ! " was the cry on 

 the slightest apparent change in the weather ; and many 

 an hour had been spent in Sywell Wood and Holcot 

 Cover, in the vain hope of catching a fox iu the snow, 

 and of keeping the hounds in condition. The vision of 

 a brave old Field-Marshal — one of England^s most 

 accomplished soldiers — now deceased, rises before the 

 writer, as with the collar of his coat well up to his ears, 

 and his thin grey silky hair peeping' from under his hat, 

 he beat his hands against his thighs and wished himself 

 well out of the wood, and sitting over the fire, safe and 

 snug, at Althorp. 



Even under these depressing conditions, no '^ Mark 

 Tapley ^' could look happier than the Master who carried 

 the horn ; the very fact of the difficulties seeming to 

 inspire him with fresh energy. Besides the old warrior 

 just referred to, Lord Granville — a genuine lover of sport 

 in any shape — would occasionally appear at the Meet 

 during Lord Spencer's Mastership ; and one day falling 

 in love with a slashing four-year-old of Mr. John Drage's 

 — a regular Leicestershire galloper — made him his own 

 at three hundred guineas, to ride with his harriers about 



