286 The Pytchley Huni, Past and Present. 



the wickets, the Drakes once were across the Midland 

 fences and grasses ; and if the Rector of Cottesbrooke 

 may at no time have touched the same point of excellence 

 as his rev. brother, the Rector of Amersham, few have 

 better known how to persuade an ill-tempered one to try 

 his best ; or when and where to negotiate an uncomfort- 

 able-looking place. 



Sent to Harrow in the heyday of boyhood, the near 

 neighbourhood of the famous Tilbury, the dealer, and of 

 his accomplished henchman, Jem Mason, the celebrated 

 steeple-chase rider, it is not to be w^ondered at that the 

 lessons taught at Pinner were more attractive than those 

 inculcated in the Homer-haunted little village on the 

 Hill. The question with the horsey spirits of the school, 

 during the somewhat easy-going epoch of Dr. Longley, 

 was not so much '' to read or not to read ''' as '^ to ride or 

 not to ride.^' The grand difficulty was ^'^ where to find a 

 horse.^^ Happily for those who boarded at the Rev. W. 

 Oxenham^s — afterwards second master, and most boy- 

 bullied and forgiving of men — in one of the two stalls in 

 the stable-yard stood a good-looking brown mare, who 

 could both gallop and jump. Her Irish groom, Pat 

 Barratt, was fond of his charge, and did well by her; 

 but he was fonder still of a half-crown and the charms 

 of the public-house. No palm was more easily greased 

 than that unfaithful Irishman's, and William Oxenden 

 Hammond, ''Jemmy" Ingram, Tom and John Drake, and 

 a few more — alas ! that the name of *' Bob " Grrimston 

 cannot now be here included — still survive to say how 

 often they " passed his hand with a silver coin," and in 

 exchange got a gallop out of that bonny brown mare. 

 The only condition imposed by that most crafty of grooms 



