The Life of a Great Sportsman 



honourable game he fancied himself very considerably, at 

 once arranged to take him on. 



"How many would you like me to give you?" inquired 

 the gentleman in question, described by Maunsell as a ladylike 

 person, with longish hair and a pince-nez, when they had 

 arranged preliminaries. " I'm — er — at my top form just now, 

 don'tcher know ! " " Thanks," said my brother, " I would 

 rather play even, if you don't mind." They did, to the other's 

 great discomfiture, and the " Cat" won anyhow. 



I remember well one day a few years after my brother 

 Maunsell had taken to golf, indeed the very last time he, my 

 eldest brother and I were ever together in this world, he said, 

 " If it were put to me now which of the two I would rather give 

 up, were I obliged to do so, I must honestly say I would rather 

 give up hunting than golf." Would that he had done so, for 

 that he overworked his constitution there can be no question. 

 But the old love was very strong in him, and as long as his 

 health stood, and he could enjoy both, he gave up neither, and 

 so died Joint Master of the Cottesmore Hounds, literally 

 "with harness on his back." 



From 1870 to 1880 Mr. Finch Mason takes up the story of 

 Maunsell's racing life, during which time he devoted himself 

 chiefly to his triumphs of the Turf, although by no means 

 neglecting his old love — Fox-Hunting. My brother was, 

 however, not destined to devote his whole time and energy 

 either to the Turf or to his own special line in any other form 

 of sport, for by the death of the third Earl of Yarborough, in 

 1875, ne found he had other and more important calls upon 

 his time and energy, to which he was only too delighted to 

 respond. For were they not to assist one who had been 

 his friend and comrade for many years, and whom he had 

 worshipped from afar with a chivalrous, single-hearted devotion 



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