Scarlet. 261 



Regent, and Hampden, very extensively during his 

 Whittlebury Forest campaigns. The brothers, Ro- 

 chester, Rioter, and Richmond, were all by Ranter, 

 and part of the Grafton pack ; and the blood of 

 Hazard conferred a rare Benefit on Tedworth. Sen- 

 sitive by Mr. Smith's Racer came with Carter, as well 

 as Saffron and Goneril, and there were soon none that 

 he loved better to draw for visitors. He would vow 

 too that Watchman by Vine Larkspur was " without 

 a fault, till he was ten years old ;" and he once assured 

 Joe Maiden that Nigel (a grandson of Harrogate), who 

 got nearly all his stock rather cream-coloured, was the 

 best he ever had. He also delighted in his one-eyed 

 Collier, and his Royalist by Fitzhardinge Rockwood, 

 who goes back their Commoner. 



Time gradually brought new favourites, Bertram and 

 and none greater than Bertram. This Nelson, 

 silver grey son of the tan Belvoir Bertram was drafted 

 by Will Goodall for being twenty-four and a-half; 

 and as Mr. Smith was still strong in the old Manager 

 faith, and liked his work, he had at one time no less 

 than five-and-twenty couple by him in the kennel. 

 He was lent at seven years old to Lord Portsmouth in 

 rather high condition, and died suddenly on the bench 

 after a day's hunting. Nelson by Belvoir Rustic was 

 the hound which knew him best to the last, and he 

 always singled him out among the pack. When he 

 hunted his own hounds, they would wind him three 

 hundred yards off, and no Burton or Carter could stop 

 them, and he wouldn't have them stopped. At Penton 

 they would dash off in a body the moment they were 

 out of kennel, and wait at the front door, whether they 

 had heard his wonted voice at his bed-room window 

 or not. His intimacy with Nelson was not much 

 cemented in the field, but began when he brought him 

 in the railway carriage from London. He was a gift 

 from Lord Forester ; but as he was rather delicate in 

 his constitution, and light below the knee, they did not 



