2/8 The Pytchley Htmt, Past and Present, 



in front of him ; but finding that he is bound to go he is 

 pretty sure to land his rider among the favoured few who 

 have seen the brilliant thirty minutes. Those who really 

 stick to hounds when they run hard for any length of 

 time may usually be numbered on the fingers of one hand, 

 leaving out the little one, and perhaps the thumb also. 

 By the man who " means going " a back seat on these 

 occasions, however accidentally obtained, is a matter of 

 humiliation and probably of self-reproach also. A great 

 author tells us that '^ there is nothing impossible to con- 

 ceal except love and a cough;" but the unfortunate above 

 referred to, in his desire to hide himself from second 

 horsemen and the joggers behind, will soon realize the 

 impossibihty of concealment. Little dreamt of by the 

 utterer of the above apophthegm, though he feels disposed 

 to call upon the trees to fall upon him, and the mole-hills 

 to rise up and cover him, he will know for a surety that 

 until the moment of the much-desired check, he will be 

 exposed to the sneers of the grooms, and be set down by 

 the stranger as one of the " muffs " of the Pytchley Hunt. 

 To such an experience the owner of Spratton Grange 

 neither has been or is likely to be subject ; and as there 

 is nothing that becomes a Master of hounds more than 

 brilliancy of performances across a country, it is much to 

 be hoped that in the event of the Pytchley country again 

 becoming vacant, its management will fall into the hands 

 of the subject of this brief and imperfect notice. (1886.[ 



MR. AND MRS. SIMSON. 



From Broom Hill, nearly adjoining the Grange, on 

 three days if not four in each week of the hunting- 



