Scarlet, 247 



1769, and their red saddle-cloth was bound with green 

 instead of blue, as a token. Earl Fitzwilliam had 

 begun the year before, with Will Dean and a few 

 hounds from the Dean of Peterborough, and then 

 Meynell became more and more famous as the cen- 

 tury drew to a close. "Marlborough," "Devonshire," 

 " Thanet," " Spencer," " Arlington," Hewlins, Sheldon, 

 Beckford, Monson, Simon Steward, Barnes, and 

 Townshend were but lesser lights at his side ; and it 

 was years before " the race of Rutland and the nose of 

 Yarborough" was a received axiom of kennel creed. 

 There was Lady Salisbury, too, the Lady SaUsbury. 

 most renowned Diana of her day, with 

 her dwarf fox-hounds and her sky-blue uniform, with 

 black collars, lappels, and jockey-caps. Enthusiastic 

 penmen were found in Herts to write up to the Sport- 

 ing Magazine the triumphs of the lady of Hatfield, 

 when she had run her fox to earth, after two hours 

 and a-half at Baldock. " Out of a field of fourscore," 

 says one in the March of '95, "her ladyship soon gave 

 honest Daniel the go-by ; pressed Mr. Hale neck and 

 neck, soon blowed the whipper-in, and continued 

 indeed, throughout the whole of the chase, to oe 

 nearest the brush." 



Lord Barrymore's eccentricities shone Lord Banymore 

 out as brightly in his hunting appoint- and Colonel 

 ments as in everything else. The hunt- Thornton. 

 ing field of Louis XIV., at Fontainbleau, was his 

 model, and his four Africans in scarlet and silver, and 

 with French horns, on which they wound blasts loud 

 enough to startle every out-lying stag from his lair, 

 kept him in music all day. The Barrymore fashion 

 did not wholly die out with the old century, but it 

 jumped with the humour of none save Colonel 

 Thornton to adhere to it. He cared far more to see 

 the Yorkshire woldsmen gaz'e in wonderment at his 

 motley cavalcade, as it wounc' its way to Foxhunter's 

 Hall, than for any sport he iiad when he got there. 



