John Barry wore a short
frock-coat, buttoned tightly at the waist, made of scarlet cloth, with
buttons bearing the De Verneuil arms, white leather breeches,
top-boots, a striped waistcoat, and a collar and cape of black velvet.
He held in his hand a small hunting-whip, and hanging to his wrist by
a silken cord was a brass horn. This man, the first whipper-in, was
accompanied by two thorough-bred dogs,--fox-hounds, white, with liver
spots, long in the leg, fine in the muzzle, with slender heads, and
little ears at their crests. The huntsman--famous in the English
county from which the Prince de Loudon had obtained him at great cost
--was in charge of an establishment of fifteen horses and sixty
English hounds, which cost the Duc de Verneuil, who was nothing of a
huntsman, but chose to indulge his son in this essentially royal
taste, an enormous sum of money to keep up.
Now, when John arrived on the ground, he found himself forestalled by
three other whippers-in, in charge of two of the royal packs of hounds
which had been brought there in carts. They were the three best
huntsmen of the Prince de Cadignan, and presented, both in character
and in their distinctively French costume, a marked contrast to the
representative of insolent Albion.
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