as
tall as donkeys, as fat as pigs, in these woods, that go and die of old
age."

The Fitzwilliam are supposed to be the biggest-boned hounds now bred,
and exquisitely handsome. If they have a fault, they are, for want of
work, or excess of numbers, rather too full of flesh; so that at the end
of the year, when the days grow warm, they seem to tire and tail in a
long run.

Many of the pasture fences are big enough to keep out a bullock; the
ditches wide and full of water; bulfinches are to be met with, stiff
rails, gates not always unlocked; so, although a Pytchley flyer is not
indispensable, on a going day, nothing less than a hunter can get along.

Tom Sebright, as a huntsman and breeder of hounds, has been a celebrity
ever since he hunted the Quorn, under Squire Osbaldeston, six-and-thirty
years ago. Sebright looks the huntsman, and the huntsman of an
hereditary pack, to perfection; rather under than over the middle
height; stout without being unwieldy; with a fine, full, intelligent,
and fresh-complexioned oval countenance; keen gray eyes; and the decided
nose of a Cromwellian Ironside. A fringe of white hair below his cap,
and a broad bald forehead, when he lifts his cap to cheer his hounds,
tell the tale of Time on this accomplished veteran of the chase.

"The field," with the Fitzwilliam, is more aristocratic than
fashionable; it includes a few peers and their friends from neighbouring
noble mansions, a good many squires, now and then undergraduates from
Cambridge, a very few strangers by rail, and a great many first-class
yeoman farmers and graziers. Thus it is equally unlike the fashionable
"cut-me-down" multitude to be met at coverside in the "Shires" _par
excellence_, and the scarlet mob who rush, and race, and lark from and
back to Leamington and Cheltenham. For seeing a good deal of sport in a
short time, the Fitzwilliam is certainly the best, within a hundred
miles of London. You have a first-rate pack, first-rate huntsman, a good
scenting country, plenty of foxes, fair fences to ride over, and though
last not least, very courteous reception, if you know how to ride and
when to hold your tongue and your horse.

My fortunate day with the Fitzwilliam was in their open pasture,
Huntingdon country. My head-quarters were at the celebrated "Haycock,"
which is known, or ought to be known, to every wandering fox-hunter,
standing as it does in the middle of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, within reach
of some of the be