A Morning at Newmarket 243 



partridges came skimming down wind, giving very short 

 time to those who were not keenly on the alert, but by 

 the rapidity of their appearance and disappearance 

 adding to the joy of the successful shooter, who, holding 

 far forward, intercepts one ; mayhap, with luck, a brace ; 

 and has not time to congratulate himself before seizing 

 his second gun and making ready for others that come, 

 heralded by the welcome cry of ' Mark ! ' — for birds are 

 thick here in this glorious game country ; and then the 

 hares ! The Ground Game Act has done little mischief 

 round Newmarket, and when we come from luncheon in 

 the keeper's snug cottage, where an appetising meal has 

 been prepared, we are aware what a row of them will be 

 laid out to relieve or throw up the gorgeous colouring of 

 the long lines of pheasants. Picturesquely dotted here 

 and there about the landscape in front of us are red- 

 brick houses, or long ranges of red-brick buildings, 

 stables in which are kept the horses whose names are 

 household words. Passing to and fro in the distance 

 are the men who make up contemporary turf history, 

 and others, too, attracted by the national sport ; for 

 there in the midst of a little group canters H.R.H. the 

 Duke of Cambridge, tempted here, as humbler mortals 

 are, by the fascination of the thoroughbred horse in un- 

 dress. 



The lot we are searching for are not in sight, so we 

 jog on, pulling up now and then to watch some sheeted 

 string walk or canter past, to note the rising hope of one 

 stable, the beast that has so bitterly disappointed another. 

 The tall, slim figure on the bay hunter is a once-famous 

 gentleman rider — and one with better hands than most 

 professional cross-country jockeys possess — who, having 

 no other occupation, wisely devotes himself to ^ the 



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