158 HUNTING IN THE MIDLANDS 



have delighted the famous Nimrod to describe. We 

 were neither Osbaldestones nor Sir Harry Good- 

 rickes : neither Myddelton Biddulphs nor Holy- 

 oakes. A Warwickshire or an Oxfordshire hunting 

 field differs very materially, so far as regards its 

 personnel, from a Leicester or a Northamptonshire 

 gathering. The latter still preserves the memories 

 and the traditions of a past regime, when hunting 

 was confined to country gentlemen, farmers, and a 

 few rich strangers : the former is typical of the 

 new order of things under which hunting has 

 ceased to be a class amusement, and has become a 

 generally popular sport. Now it is not too much 

 to claim for hunting at the present day this char- 

 acter. The composition of the little band which on 

 the morning now in question left the Lion Hotel at 

 Chippington, bound for covert, was no unimport- 

 ant testimony to this fact. We were half a dozen 

 in number, and comprised among ourselves a 

 barrister, a journalist, a doctor, and a couple of 

 Civil servants, who had allowed themselves a week's 

 holiday, and who, being fond of riding, had deter- 

 mined to take it in this way. In an average hunt- 

 ing field of the present day you will discover men 

 of all kinds of professions and occupations — attor- 

 neys, auctioneers, butchers, bakers, innkeepers, artists, 

 sailors, authors. There is no town in England 



