The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-12 00:00:00

Mr. Harcourt Johnstone.

(From Baily's Magazine.)
To the list of Yorkshire Masters of Hounds, which have
appeared in our pages, we now append the gentleman who
for some time has hunted the Pickering country with a
success that has brought it into note, and given him a posi-
tion which he is well able to support.
Mr. Johnstone is the eldest son of Sir John Johnstone,
and was born in 1829, at the Palace of Bishopthorpo,wher•
his grandfather, the Archbishop of York, resided. The
son of a man, who, bordering on 70 years of age, manages
to be with hounds four days a week, and the great-grand-
son of the celebrated Lord Vernon, the owner of Wood-
pecker, a famous horse of the last century, cannot but have
been born a foxhunter, and a sucking M.P.H. Mr. John-
stone was educated at Eton, and on leaving it entered the
2d Life Guards in 1816, when they were commanded by
Colonel ll'Douall, who used to let the cornets off the riding
school if they pledged themselves to go hunting, and it is
needless to add the obligation was invariably respected,
until they one day got into trouble by the Inspector-
General of Cavalry complaining of their stirrups being
too short ; in this experience has proved him to be wrong
in practice.
Mr. Johnstone remained in the regiment until 1850,
when, ou his marriage with the second daughter of Mr.
Charles Mills of Millington Court, ho quitted it; and, Cin-
cinnatus like, turned his sword into a ploughshare, and
sett:ed in Yorkshire.

The Pickering country, in which Mr. Johnstone has
commenced his career as M.F.H., extends from the village
of that name to Robin Hood's Bay, and from thence to
Scarborough, and was formerly hunted by Mr. Richard
Hill, who, with his son, Mr. John Hill, presided over it
for half a century. Their hounds, which boasted of
a very staunch strain of blood, and fOr very many years
before they were broken up showed wonderful sport,
passed into the hands of the present Duke of Grafton, and
added much to the strength of the Wakefield hounds.
Consequently, Mr. Johnstone had to get together a fresh
pack, which he formed by buying the old and young
drafts from the Bramham, Lord Middleton, Mr. Fitzwilliam,
and Mr. Foljambe. These, by the aid of a very clever
huntsman, Dick Christian, who was worthy of his name,
and the recommendation ho had from the Duke of Beau-
fort, managed, during the throe years he was with them,
to show the country excellent sport; and those hunting
men who wintered at Scarborough were perfectly content
with the gallops they enjoyed with them. Dick Christian
also took honours as a breeder of hounds, and showed that
Sebright's early lessons had not been lost on him, as ho
bred Caroline, by the Duko of Beaufort's Hotspur out of
Mr. Lane Fox's Constant, that took the second prize at the
Doncaster Hound Show. The subscriptions falling short
of expenditure, as, alas! is too often the case, Mr. John-
stone took to hunting the hounds himself, and in spite of
his weight, in a most hilly and rough country, with large
woodlands and deep valleys, he contrived to kill plenty of
foxes, and gave satisfaction to the owaers of covers as well
as the subscribers to the hunt, who appreciate his gentle-
manlike conduct in the field, as well as his keenness for
sport. And although the Pickering is neither a large nor
a fashionable country, more unanimity and good-fellow-
ship exists in it than in those with greater pretensions,
for the gentlemen and farmers know every hound that is
out, and take a personal interest in all that concerns the
well-being of the hunt.
In all the duties of a country gentleman Mr. Johnstone
takes an active part, and although a Liberal in politics, and
a candidate for St. Stephen's, ho is as great a hater of the
Beales school as of vulpecides and poachers.