The Life of a Great Sportsman 



that that I made his acquaintance. I used to go in the 

 autumn to Brocklesby, about September time, and we had 

 many pleasant mornings with the cubs together. To talk 

 about his horsemanship is a thrice-told tale, but I well remember 

 old Jack Skipwith saying that he remembered " all the old 

 lot," Tom Oliver, Captain Beecher, Jim Mason, etc., and none 

 of them could "hold a candle to Maunsell." He was, I think, 

 physically the most gifted man I have ever known. For his 

 size and weight one of the strongest, with wrists like steel, and 

 every one knows his nickname of the "Cat" was earned from 

 his marvellous activity. It is not very long ago since his old 

 Harrow and Cambridge friend A. J. McNeil and myself, when 

 talking about him, both remembered an incident one morning 

 cub-hunting at Brocklesby. Maunsell rode a black horse 

 Sultan at a small wold fence out of a road with a ditch to him 

 and a slope down to the ditch. The horse instead of popping 

 over popped in and back into the road like an eel. Any poor 

 rider would almost certainly have shot off, a moderate one 

 might have stuck on with an effort, but Maunsell simply came 

 round with the horse as a matter of course. It was curious 

 that it should have stuck in both our memories for nearly forty 

 years. There are numbers of fine horsemen, but there was 

 a style about Maunsell that no one else had. He looked better 

 on a horse than any one else, rode very long and sat down and 

 back in his saddle. Though I think I was at least an inch 

 taller, I remember getting on this very horse Sultan and finding 

 his leathers five or six holes too long for me. Later in life, 

 like many others, he rode rather shorter. How the Lincoln- 

 shire people adored him. Old Jack Skipwith was never tired 

 of talking about him ! He was not only first- rate company, 

 but what is perhaps rarer, a first-rate companion — a fine sense 

 of humour and a rare fund of anecdote. When I say a 



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