106 THE QUORN HUNT 



often been told how Furrier was crooked owing to 

 having been tied up too much at walk, and this was no 

 doubt the reason of his being sent away from Belvoir. 

 When any critic came to the kennels, and tried to obtain 

 an end-on view of Furrier, the Squire would interpose 

 and say in his shrill voice, "Not that way ; look at him 

 so," and Furrier would be turned broadside on, so that 

 his shortcoming should not be seen. 



At the end of a very long day, when hounds and 

 horses were pretty well beaten, the indomitable Furrier 

 was running at the head of the pack, and in his career 

 jumped a very high gate, and from that moment he 

 became a stud-hound. At first he was naturally used 

 with care ; but he was not long in making a name for 

 himself, and before the Squire's second period of master- 

 ship came to an end he rode up to Kirby gate on the 

 first Monday in November with twenty (one account 

 says forty) couples of bitches, all by Furrier, and in an 

 ecstasy of pleasure the master said, " There, gentlemen, 

 there they are. I have bred those beauties to please 

 you — ride over them if you can." * 



This was perhaps a rather injudicious challenge to 

 issue, but as a matter of fact the hounds were not so 

 much ridden over as those of some other masters of the 

 Ouorn. Mr. Osbaldeston made no pretence of stopping 

 his field by a single wave of his hand as Mr. Greene did 

 afterwards ; but some of his pet anathemas, given in his 

 loudest and shrillest falsetto, usually sufficed to secure 

 elbow-room for his hounds. 



Although these hounds were all that could be desired 

 in point of make and shape — their necks, shoulders, loins, 

 and limbs are said to have been as near perfection as 



1 Durin 0- the time that Mr. Villebois was master of the Hampshire 

 Hounds, he met on the 22nd December 1822 at Harmsworth, and on that 

 occasion he took to the covert-side sixteen and a half couples of hounds by 

 Pontiff, a favourite stallion hound of his, the dams being Vengeance, 

 Thoughtless, Notable, and Milliner. 



