The Life of a Great Sportsman 



stable yard, only some paces from the front door, making a 

 short cut for horsemen, especially welcome in wet weather. 



Some very fair shooting also went with the house, for 

 although my brother never carried a gun himself, he and his 

 wife were far too unselfish to take any place at which they 

 could not welcome their shooting as well as their hunting 



O fc> 



friends. 



My brother felt the differences, and I may also say the 

 difficulties, of the new country, from his well-known Lincoln- 

 shire. The enormous meets, the " fields " almost dangerously 

 large, difficult fences, wide brooks, and riding eagerly as a 

 boy ; never turning his back upon a fence at all negotiable, 

 it is no wonder that in Leicestershire he had the worst tosses 

 of his life. 



After one very severe fall, the dramatically amusing 

 particulars of which are told and illustrated in this work by 

 Mr. Finch Mason, he was laid up for a long time. Tosses, 

 however, never daunted my brother, and to the last day he was 

 out with hounds ; he never faltered, never funked a fence, and 

 above all, never overrode a horse, knowing what they could 

 do and asking for no more. 



It was not, however, as a horseman only, that my brother 

 became in an incredibly short time, almost as well known 

 and appreciated in Leicestershire and the surrounding counties, 

 as he had been in the county of his birth. 



A striking proof of this was manifested when his friend 

 Lord Lonsdale resigned the Mastership of the Cottesmore 

 in 1 910. At an important meeting held at Oakham by the 

 members of the Cottesmore Hunt, Major-General J. F. 

 Brocklehurst, now Lord Ranksborough, a man immensely 

 popular in the neighbourhood, and one of the ?finest types of 

 English gentlemen and sportsmen, was asked to take the vacant 



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