10 HUNTING REMINISCENCES 



such a clipper over a country that Sir Frederick 

 Johnstone said no money would stop him buying 

 her. However, she unfortunately met with an 

 accident in the stable and had to be destroyed. 

 The horse Methodist was bought from old Mr. 

 Wilders of Croxton, who was of that persuasion. 

 He was made by his son Stephen, who was a light 

 weight and a most determined horseman. In a 

 good run of fifty minutes from Widmerpool to 

 Piper Hole Gorse the horse carried me splendidly, 

 and jumped the river Smite, old Mr. Sherbrooke 

 calling out, * There is no one in the same field with 

 the Methodist ' ; and he was a brilliant horse, being 

 subsequently sold for three hundred guineas. 



" In Leicestershire I had a good friend in the 

 late Colonel Burnaby, M.P., who lived at Baggrave 

 Hall. He used to ask me to his house to talk 

 about hunting, and would show me 'his blood- 

 stained clothes and great treasure won in battle.' 

 That was about the time that the evergreen Mr. 

 Tailby hunted a pack of hounds in high Leicester- 

 shire ; and he took some awful falls, breaking 

 nearly every bone in his body. He had a way of 

 catching hold of the back of his saddle when jump- 

 ing a fence, and this was, I think, often the cause 

 why his falls were attended with such serious results, 

 because he could not get clear of his horse." 



A sign of the times in the sixties was the 

 number of sporting parsons who could claim 

 honours in any country, and kept good studs of 

 hunters. The price of wheat was up in those days 

 and tithes were correspondingly high ; but bad 



