248 ^ilk and Scarlet. 



Fourteen servants with hawks on their wrists, ten 

 hunters, principally by his Jupiter, a pack of stag 

 hounds and lap-dog beagles, and a brace of wolves, 

 against which the farmers soon levelled a round-robin, 

 formed the advanced guard. Two brace of pointers, 

 and thrice as many greyhounds, headed by Major, in 

 rich buff and blue sheets, with armorial bearings, fol- 

 lowed in their train ; and his three eighty-guinea guns, 

 and a box full of the plover's head feathers, with 

 which alone he would condescend to fish, rumbled 

 behind in the wagon. 

 Mr Me n 11 Unfortunately for us, the writers of the 

 period were much more anxious to note 

 down such mere embroidery of sport, than to follow 

 the sterling career of Mr. Meynell at Quorn. It 

 pleased them better to tell how Merkin was sold for 

 four hogsheads of claret and two couple of puppies, 

 and how a bevy of sportsmen in consequence knew 



' ' Only from the hollow cask, 

 How the waning night grew old," 



than how Jack Raven got his hounds away from 

 Langton Caudle, or Glooston Wood. In 1795, it is 

 true we find a slight notification to the effect that 

 " Mr. Meynell recommenced his campaign in the 

 Leicestershire Furzes ;" and further that " Sir Henry 

 Featherstone had thirty hunters daily exercised in 

 body clothing, near Loughboro' ;" but after that, all 

 became so dark and drear, that we abandoned the 

 search in despair, and determined on seeking out 

 some living oracle, who could furnish the missing links 

 with the past. 



Our Search for ^n making inquiry, we found that Tom 

 Tom Wingfieid Wingfield, the patriarch of huntsmen, was 

 the Elder. alive, hard by the resting-place of his old 

 master ; and before the week was out, we were at 

 Ashbourne. To find him after that, although we knew 

 that he was within three miles of the town, was no 



