Marriage to Lady Yarborough 



Thus it was that " Little Brocklesby " came into being, and 

 only the untimely death of the third Earl prevented the title- 

 deeds from being handed over as a free and most generous 

 gift to my brother Maunsell. 



In the management of hounds, Maunsell was not only of 

 much practical use to Lady Yarborough but to the whole 

 country-side, not forgetting the pack itself, for he studied their 

 breeding, feeding, and general health in a most thorough and 

 complete manner. We used to laugh at him when we went 

 to see him in his house, " Little Brocklesby," as we nearly 

 always found him studying the Brocklesby Hounds' Stud Book, 

 called by us "his prayer-book." Amongst his papers looked 

 over since his death I have found many of these books, the 

 copious notes on the margins being ample proof of how 

 thoroughly they were studied. 



The following are supposed to be old wives' tales : one, that 

 you must " tell " the bees if death occurs in the family, and put 

 crape on their hives, or they will desert their homes ; another, 

 that if all the scions of a family that has lived, say, a hundred 

 years or so in one place, go away, the rooks desert the rookery 

 they have made in the woods near the house, and form another 

 home of their own at the nearest point to where any members 

 of the old family they have lived near so long still have their 

 dwelling. I cannot from my own knowledge answer for the bees, 

 though I have been told by apiarists that what I have related 

 is undoubted fact ; but for the rooks and their vagaries I can 

 speak with assurance that the following is a true tale. When 

 my eldest brother gave up his old home at Limber, the inhabi- 

 tants of the Rookery, in a small wood, some three hundred 

 yards from the house, deserted en masse, and fixed their 

 new habitation in a clump of trees as near to the home of 

 my brother Maunsell at " Little Brocklesby " as possible. And 



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