“What am I to do, Sir?” he asked.
I said, “You hear the huntsman’s horn?” and the man did nothing. Very soon after Payne came up, rather angry. The whipper-in, however, disarmed him by confessing that he had done wrong; “But,” he added, “I could not stop them, as Mr. Fellowes said they were killing their fox.” Whereupon Payne laid the body of the pack on the line, and killed in a few minutes.
I had the best of it that evening after dinner.
I was in the famous Waterloo run of February 22, 1866. Its merits have been very much overrated, for hounds were constantly changing foxes, and were never near catching any one of them. It was only a journey.
One of the fastest runs I ever saw in the Midlands was fifty-five minutes, from Thorpe Trussels to Rolleston. William Coke (otherwise known as “Billy Coke”), my old college friend, Stirling Crawfurd, Little Gilmour, and myself were alone with hounds when they killed in Rolleston Spinney; the pace had beaten the rest of the field. Another time I had a very fast gallop from Parson’s Gorse up to Bunny Park. The incident remains in memory, as I had it all to myself on a five-year-old horse, The Kite (by Falcon, dam by Julius Cæsar), belonging to Mr. Crawfurd. The Kite’s portrait, by Ferneley, now hangs at Buchanan Castle.
I had some good horses in those days. In a run from Crick Gorse hounds crossed the Stamford and Rugby Railway, then in process of construction, and enclosed with new double posts and rails. My horse jumped them both, in and out, and I was up when the fox went to ground in the yard at the back of Standford Hall.
The first man to come up was that fine old fellow, Sir Francis Head; I did not know him to speak to. He, however, made me a profound bow, saying he “hoped I was satisfied with myself.” I said my satisfaction was less with myself than my horse, as indeed it was, for that was my first day on him.
The Wizard was one of the best hunters I ever had. At the finish of a fine run with the Pytchley he jumped the Avon, in spite of the fact that the flood water was out on each side of him. It was a big jump; Jim Mason, the steeplechase rider, and many others, failed to reach the other side. Mason was so impressed with The Wizard, that he offered to pay me the value of the stakes of the Liverpool Steeplechase before the horse started, if I would lend him for six weeks; but I refused. He was well suited for the Liverpool course: fast, good at water, and also at banks—thanks to his training in Norfolk.
Mason had a vein of originality in him. Returning from hunting to Market Harborough from Langton one afternoon, he and some others had to cross the brook. Fog came on very suddenly, and they could not find the ford; they turned back, but it was so thick they could not find the gate. Mason then said there was nothing for it but to cry “Murder,” to bring some one to their aid, and he did it lustily. Nobody coming to help, he changed his tactics. “Let’s be very jolly and laugh,” he suggested. The rest agreeing, they laughed so long and loudly, that three labourers came to see what the joke was.
The Coot, a chestnut, was another good horse. On him I had a grand gallop from Waterloo Gorse, by Tally-ho Stick Covert to ground near Cottesbrooke Park. It was a very fast thing, and there was nobody else in sight of hounds during the latter half of the run.