224 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



turnpike, Mr. South says : ' I saw a red coat winding along 

 at a snail's pace, the wearer evidently disregarding the 

 sprinkling. "He is a sportsman," thought I, "and see, he 

 wears drab breeches — a sure sign of one ! " ' • 



As the wearer draws nearer, Mr. South finds to his 

 surprise that he had mistaken drab fustian trousers for ker- 

 seymere breeches, the horseman's ' grave and thoughtful 

 countenance ' making but poor amends for such a shock. The 

 rest of his costume was disquieting in the extreme. ' His dress 

 consisted of a plain scarlet frock-coat, a lilac silk waistcoat, 

 kid gloves, the aforesaid fustians, and boots which we call 

 Wellingtons ; and certainly they were Wellingtons in every 

 sense of the word, for the wearer was neither more nor less 

 than the illustrious Arthur himself. As he advanced my red 

 coat caught his eye, and at the same moment my eye caught 

 his undeniable nose. There was no mistaking him, and I 

 took off my hat to the greatest man of the day.' Needless 

 to say that the Duke converses with Nim South with all 

 the urbanity which the interviewer invariably experiences at 

 the hands of the truly great. ' We had,' Nim goes on to say, 

 ' just the sort of day's sport to please a man like the Duke 

 of Wellington, who, though mighty in the field of war, cuts 

 no great figure in the hunting field. Indeed, to do him all 

 due justice, I have seldom seen a man with less idea of 

 riding than he has. His seat is unsightly in the extreme, 

 and few men get more falls in the course of a year than his 



' In spite of Beau Brummell's instruction to his tailor, ' Keep continually 

 sendingleather breeches,' it would appear that at this time cords and not leathers 

 were the vogue ; George IV., as we have seen, ordered cords for Dom Miguel's 

 visit. When the Mr. Tomkinson of the day electrified the Meltonians with his 

 uncompromising riding to hounds, he was at first classed by Nimrod as ' a slow 

 one ' on account of his wearing leathers. They soon found out their mistake, 

 and the Cheshire squire appears to have had much the same effect upon the 

 mind of Leicestershire as that produced by his gallant descendant some few years 

 ago on the occasion of his first visit to Melton. Lord Wilton's and Lord George 

 Bentinck's distinguished appearance in buckskins at Croxton Park races some 

 two or three years later is said to have brought them into fashion. 



