176 Life and Times of " The Druid" 



with hound and horn. He loved to halloo 

 ' the red rascal ' over the rides far better than 

 to watch the 'Leger horses close up round 

 the Red-house turn. The men of the Mid- 

 lands still speak of him as quite a representa- 

 tive sportsman, with Will Goodall and Sir 

 Harry Goodricke, whom they lost so early. 

 He would hardly have stepped aside to see a 

 race ; but a scarcity of foxes in Charnwood 

 Forest, or finding himself above twelve stone 

 on the scales would have sorely vexed his 

 soul. His son cared for none of these things. 

 Still, he could not bear to see the Quorn 

 without a Master, and stepped boldly into 

 the breach when Mr. Clowes resigned in 

 1866. He wore the horn at his saddle bow 

 for conformity's sake, but he never blew it, 

 and let the field go its own way, hunting the 

 country on no system. A bit of a gallop, a 

 check, and then trotting off to sift a favourite 

 gorse for a fresh fox, jumped much more 

 with his humour than an old-fashioned hunt- 

 ing run, where hounds had to puzzle it out. 

 Often, when his hounds had reached the 

 meet, ten or twelve miles away, he was hardly 

 out of bed, and he would turn up ' on wheels,' 



