292 The Pytchley Htint, Past and Present. 



"uhilst Mr. F. Langham and Miss Langliam, brother and 

 sister to the Master, — devotees to all things pertaining 

 to rural life, but more especially to hunting — have their 

 home on the crest of the hill, masters of every tint of the 

 setting sun, but slaves to each rough breath of the rude 

 west wind. 



It is not yesterday that Mr. F. Langham formed a 

 conspicuous member of the " Eton Eleven," and helped 

 to fight the annual battle against the hereditary enemy 

 from Harrow on the Hill ; but as he still takes a good 

 deal of catching when hounds run ; so with the cue and 

 the tennis-bat there are few in his neighbourhood with 

 whom he cannot successfully compete, without giving or 

 receiving weight for age. 



SIR RAIXALD KNIGHTLEY. 



To Sir Eainald Knightley, M.P. for the Southern 

 division of the county, is to be assigned by virtueof a 

 three months^ priority of birth over Sir Charles Isham, 

 of Lamport Hall, and Mr. Nethercote of Moulton Grange, 

 the honour of being — in 1886 — the senior member of the 

 Pytchley Hunt. 



All three are within easy, too easy, distance of the 

 border-line which divides the sixties from the seventies, 

 that doubtful decade of strength or infirmity preceding 

 the record of four-score years, after which life is apt to 

 become a via dolorosa, trodden with more or less 

 painful and halting steps. Not that a man fourteen 

 years on the right side of eighty has much reason to 

 rejoice if that be true which was said in the hearing of 

 the narrator of this story by a too close observer of 



