174 STAG-HUXTING RECOLLECTIONS 



Yeomanry), one of the best riders, and also one of the best 

 preachers of his acquaintance, and whom he much wished 

 to make a bishop, the Eoyal Hounds do not appear to have 

 ever been distinguished for any of the hard-riding parsons 

 who adorn the sporting Hterature of fifty years ago. A 

 writer of authority in the early years of this century declares 

 that he would back the bench of Bishops against the 

 Judges any day over a country or on the flat, and the pages 

 of ' Nimrod ' teem with the exploits of resolute clergymen, 

 who seem to have been especial favourites, and to have often 

 attracted distinguished and particular notice. Thus, ' the 

 Rev. J. M.,' writes the Duke of Cleveland in his diary, 

 ' shone as conspicuously on his grey mare as in the pulpit, 

 and was alone with hounds over Ainderby Moors.' Again, 

 ' The Vicar of P. is no humbug,' writes ' Nimrod.' This 

 satisfactory conclusion was due to the Vicar's love of hunt- 

 ing, and to the sporting character of his invitation to the 

 writer and Sir Bellingham Graham to drink more claret. ' If 

 you drink enough, it will make your eyes look like boiled 

 gooseberries.' The first time I saw Mr. Drake out we hap- 

 pened to run fast over half a dozen old grass fields with rough, 

 old-fashioned fences. This was quite at the beginning of the 

 run, and we were all full of go. As I watched the ' seriouslj^ 

 dressed ' horseman smoothly cutting out the work for us 

 on a well-bred old chestnut horse, I knew at once we were 

 entertaining an angel unawares. Perhaps Mr. Drake would 

 have come out oftener, had he known the pleasure and 

 interest his style of riding gave us all. 



Whether hounds run fast over it or slow, Bucks is not 

 at all a bad country to give a horse confidence ; the neat 

 wattles are encouraging to a degree, and here and there a sort 

 of fringe of young and innocent hazel, with no ditch, teaches 

 a horse to get up. As far as I remember, the only time I saw 

 a hona fide upstanding gate jumped by one of the Queen's 



