Scarlet. 335 



George Beers to Quorn when the Marquis of Tavi- 

 stock gave up his hounds the first time. The latter 

 four were by the Oakley Hercules, for whom Mr. 

 Musters had a very strong regard. The pack were 

 rather unsizeable when they arrived at Quorn, the 

 dogs large (beginning with the 2 5 -inch Hannibal), and 

 the bitches light of bone. Six or seven couple of 

 Marmions by Pytchley Marmion, came along with 

 them, and it was because Sir Harry Goodricke 

 thought that Merlin and Marmion of that blood were 

 soft, that he got rid of the whole pack after the retire- 

 ment of Lord Southampton (who had bred a good 

 deal from draft bitches, many of them by Belvoir 

 Layman), and replaced them with Mr. Newman" 

 hounds, which were principally Badminton drafts, and 

 as wild as hawks. Neither huntsman nor whips 

 thought that the Marmions were fairly condemned, but 

 that they were simply rather delicate hounds, with very 

 fine noses. However, twenty couple were packed off 

 to Russia, and the rest into all lands. And so ended 

 one Oakley pack. Never was there a fairer sports- 

 man than its noble master, and he would go so far as 

 to make his whips stop the hounds to let a sinking 

 fox get a little farther ahead. 



Will Wells's journals, although their ^ji^^veiis 

 faded ink sorely tests the eyesight, tell 

 of many a great day with this pack in its early days. 

 His style of drawing up his remarks is unique, and 

 he terms the whole — " A Journal of the Operations of 

 the Oakley Foxhounds, 18 — ," and heads each entry 

 as " The Meet at (say) Yardley Chase on Monday as 

 specified below." The Oakley and the Cross Albans 

 countries were then united, and in 181 1- 12 the cub- 

 hunting began on July 13th, and the season usually 

 ended on May 4th. Will seems to have been as- 

 tonished at his own labours, as after recording that 

 they killed forty-four brace of "foxies" (as he affec- 

 tionately called them), he adds — ** Here ended the 



