TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

cutting and thrusting contingent from two adjoining
hunts, and these people were rightly regarded as out-
siders by the true-blue Packlestone residents,

During my October days new faces continually
added themselves to the covert-side crowd, and by
the time when I began to ride my own horses the
fields were fairly representative, and I very soon
found myself included in the friendliness for which
the Hunt had a reputation, though it was some time
before I could say that I felt at home, especially when
I was on my old chestnut, who fairly pulled my arms
out.

On a bright morning late in October, composed
though slightly self-conscious on Cockbird's back
outside Olton Gorse, I could look around me and
identify the chief supporters of the Hunt. Prominent,
owing to his official capacity, was the Field-Master,
Bertie Hartby, a keen-faced man whose appointment
by Denis had caused a certain amount of controversy.
It was said that Hartby was always in too much of a
hurry, but there he was, anyhow, intent on doing his
best to keep the field in order.

Near him was a highly important personage,
Captain Harry Hinnycraft, who for a vast number of
years had been Honorary Secretary of the Hunt.
"Dear old Captain Harry," as the young ladies called
him (for on them he was wont to turn an appreciative
eye), was by no means an easy old gentleman to
please unless it suited him to be amiable. His un-
qualified approval of the new Master was balanced
by an unconcealed prejudice against his Field-Master,
who was, he asserted to all and sundry, "as wild as a
hawk", varying this with "mad as a hatter". Com-
promise was a word of which Captain Hinnycraft
had never mastered the meaning; massive and

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