250 Silk and Scarlet, 



to have no charm for him. He was anxious, how- 

 ever, to know if Mr. Drake had taken to his 

 father's country ; and when we informed him that he 

 was half through his second season, it turned out that 

 he had written, sixteen months before, to a relative, 

 requesting an answer on the point ; but as he was 

 "the best man in the world to keep a secret," the 

 question might have been unanswered for years, if we 

 had not called in. 



Meynelliana "^^^ ^^ ^^ sHppcd With Tom intO the 



past, and had about an hour and five 

 minutes without a single check. He quite remem- 

 bered the Meynell family keeping harriers, and fol- 

 lowing them with poles ; but the real dawn of his 

 fox-hunting life was when Mr. Meynell sent for him 

 at ten for Quorn. There could not have been very 

 much of him at that date, as he not only had to ride 

 behind his new master with false stirrups in Hyde 

 Park, on account of the inconvenient shortness of his 

 legs, but that mighty Nimrod led him, on their very 

 first interview, from his study to the meat safe, and 

 after tying a piece of cord round his waist and thighs, 

 suspended him to a steel-yard, and weighed him, 

 a trifle under four stone. As he waxed in size and 

 years, the kitchen became a luckless spot to him. In 

 a fit of cupboard love, he went to ask the cook, Fanny 

 Screeton, for an apple, and as he " paused for a reply " 

 on the threshold, a fellow-servant shot an arrow from 

 one of the children's bows at him, and his eye was 

 irretrievably ruined. Still, he made one do double 

 duty, and right ably too. Lord Stamford had hounds 

 in those days at Bradgate Park, and Tom was spe- 

 cially selected by Mr. Meynell, and, to use his own 

 words, " placed as an ensign on John's Hill," to see 

 what hounds were leading when they joined packs to 

 draw Swithland Wood. His report was not particu- 

 larly gratifying to Quorn, as he placed three of Lord 

 Stamford's first, and two of Mr. Meynell's second ; 



