AN ACTIVE MAN ON HIS FEET

Fred Buzzaway, whose name has just cropped up casually, was a totally different type of sportsman from that reticent local magnate Sir John Ruddimore ( of Rapworth Park).  Always fond of a joke, Fred Buzzaway was a blue-jowled, dog-faced bachelor, who habitually dressed up as though it were going to be a pouring wet day.   

Bowler hat well-down over his ears; dark whipcord coat and serviceable brown breeches; tight and skimpy stock; such was his rig-out, wet or fine.  I see him now, splashed with mud, his collar turned up, and his head bent against the driving rain.  His boots were usually muddy owing to his laudable habit of getting off his horse as often as possible to give it a rest, and during a slow hunt he was often seen leading his mount and even running beside it.  He was an active man on his feet and when he wasn’t riding to hounds he was following a pack of foot-harriers. 

 

Stag-hunting he despised.  “Jackasses hunting a carted jackass,” he called it.  In his youth Buzzaway had been called to the Bar.  His friends always said that when he got there he asked for a bottle of ‘Bass’ and never went back again after he discovered his mistake.  From this it may be inferred that he had a wholesome belief in good liquor.

Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs Of A Fox-Hunting Man, 1928.

What Does The Fox Say?:  Ylvis (Link)