Writers on Hunting 135 



exposure to weather, scanty fare and personal dis- 

 comfort, and the courage with which he faced and 

 disregarded them all, and never flinched even when 

 suffering from painful sickness and exhausting 

 disease, is not to be paralleled among writers for 

 the Press. . . . 



He was a man of iron will, and indomitable 

 perseverance, and with absolutely no regard for the 

 ordinary comforts of life. He would rise at day- 

 break, if his work called him to make such an 

 effort, but his general habit was to sleep till noon, all 

 his hardest work being done between lo p.m. and 

 2 a.m. His hours for meals were most irregular. 



His dress was as little studied as his other 

 personal comforts, and in order to induce him to 

 put on a new garment it was needful to secrete the 

 old one, and place the other in its stead. His one 

 real anxiety seemed to be about his gaiters, without 

 which he never went abroad, and so much store did 

 he set by them that when his sons had to pass 

 through an ordeal of any uncommon kind [such as 

 a competitive examination or making an offer of 

 marriage], he invariably offered to lend them his 

 gaiters. He entreated permission to wear them on 

 his own wedding day ; and on being refused, tucked 

 them into his pocket and put them on when fairly 

 off with his bride for Northampton Station. Occa- 

 sionally he picked up queer-looking garments in 

 out-of-the-way places. One huge white driving 

 coat I well remember ; it had six capes, and possibly 

 once belonged to the driver of a stage coach. 

 Arrayed in this, and pacing up and down a railway 

 platform, talking to himself, or rather, repeating 

 aloud some quaint story he had heard or read, he 

 often attracted attention. 



The Hon. Francis Lawley. 



