3 44 ^^^ Pytchley Hicnt, Past and Present. 



his son, will agree that few Hunts could boast two more 

 determined horsemen, or more keen appreciators of the 

 " Noble Science." 



MR. WILLIAM DRAGE. 



The Sywell Wood, or as some deem it the " seamy side ■" 

 of the Pytchley country, for seventy years numbered 

 among its more sport-loving farmers, one who^ though 

 now in his eighty-seventh year, has still little need for the 

 help of spectacles, and upon whose organs of hearing the 

 assaults of Time seem to have had scarcely any effect. 



The spare form and familiar features of William Drage 

 of Holcot have not for many a year been seen at the old 

 accustomed Meets ; but his heart is still with '^ horse 

 and hound," and he glories in the feeling that his two 

 sons, John and Binj'on, have long been amongst the 

 more constant of the farmer devotees to the noble sport ; 

 and that he has a grandson who is able to "hold his 

 own " across a country with any of the followers of the 

 "P.H." 



MR. JOHN BARBER. 



With the disappearance from the cover- side of John 

 Barber of Hannington, another old friend to hunting seems 

 to have left a gap in the yeoman-following of the '^ P.H.;" 

 a vacuum created by the demon-touch of shrinkage in the 

 value of agricultural produce, rather than by that of the 

 arch-enemy, Time. 



