The Life of a Great Sportsman 



he registered as his own after the death of Captain Machell — 

 mounting guard over a favourite hunting-whip formerly belong- 

 ing to him, staring me in the face every day to remind me 

 of his genial personality, and nothing but the pleasantest 

 recollections of the original, small wonder that the predominant 

 feeling within me is that it would have been a matter of great 

 regret had we never met. Cheeriest and brightest of com- 

 panions, as all agree who ever had the honour of his acquaint- 

 ance, nothing seemed capable of damping his habitual good 

 spirits. 



Well do I remember only two days after a bad fall he 

 received when hunting with the Cottesmore — the worst that 

 ever befell him — three years before his death, his coming to 

 see me in London. Bruised from head to foot, so stiff was he 

 that it was with the greatest difficulty he could mount the 

 stairs, yet though compelled to sit with his legs stretched 

 straight out before him and in evident pain all the while, he 

 treated the whole affair as a joke, giving me such a laughable 

 description of his toss, which it is no exaggeration to say would 

 have killed nine men out of ten, that one quite forgot for the 

 moment its serious nature. 



He was in the act of riding at a big jump with a drop the 

 other side, when some young sportsman, a stranger to himself, 

 charged the obstacle express pace, at such close quarters as to 

 momentarily take the attention of the good hunter ridden by 

 Maunsell Richardson from the business in hand — at least that 

 is the only construction the latter could put upon it — with 

 the result that the pair came a fearful cropper the other side, 

 the horse rolling over and over his rider — who as usual stuck to 

 his saddle — as he lay on the ground. 



Some of his friends at once dismounted and went to the 

 rescue, and "as he lay there apparently lifeless, he recovered 



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