35^ Silk and Scarlet. 



fearful were Charles King's troubles, forty years ago, 

 when he got among the " Crick thrusters ;" and well 

 might he, in the bitterness of his heart, record at night, 

 " The day being bad, and the horsemen mad, drove 

 the hounds mad, so we made mad work of it, and lost 

 a brace of foxes." 



No keener souls than Lord Althorp and Sir Charles 

 Knightley ever watched the work of hounds, and they 

 were seldom away from the kennel for nine months in 

 the year. Once they rode over there from Pytchley 

 in a deep snow, and took fifty couple out ; and Lord 

 Althorp always spoke fondly of it, even when politics 

 and shorthorns had deadened his heart to his first great 

 love, and said that he " should never forget the beau- 

 tiful music of Sywell Wood." His lordship reduced 

 his standard by crossing with Mr. Assheton Smith's, 

 for whose use he sometimes paid Tom Wingfield 25/. 

 a year ; and besides Champion and Pontiff, he was 

 especially fond of their Saladin. It was on Nov. lOth, 

 1 8 17, that he got the fall, from which he never really 

 recovered, in the course of a two hours' run from 

 Brampton Wood ; and then the reins departed for a 

 season into Sir Charles's hands ; and he found himself 

 with fifty couple, principally by Ottoman, Orpheus, 

 and New Forest Justice. 



E^dsftHpntinff ^^o years before there had been some 

 six couple by Outlaw, who was bred by 

 Mr. Lee Anthony in the Oakley country. The old 

 dog was light of tongue, and straight-necked, and 

 could not turn with his fox ; but to those who, Hke 

 Will Butler, made it 



** Their delight on a cloudy night. 

 In the season of the year," 



to go badger-hunting, he was worth his weight in 

 gold. The Pytchley spinneys were full of them ; so 

 much so, that shortly after reading in the diary that 

 " we found old Bobtail not ripe for running, and killed 



