WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



of Lothian. She having died in 1 791, he took a second wife 

 in 1793, namely, Arabella, daughter of William, sixth Lord 

 Craven, who bore him four sons, the youngest being Char- 

 les William George, subject of the present note, born at 

 Chailey, in Sussex, on 3rd December 1809. 



Of Charles St John's boyhood the record is meagre. 

 When Cosmo Innes was editing Natural History and 

 Sport in Moray in 1863, he received a few particulars from 

 Mr Thomas Jeans, who was a schoolfellow of St John at 

 Midhurst, showing that the lad had already developed a 

 strong passion for wild animals, filling his box with "dor- 

 mice in one till, stag-beetles of gigantic size and wonderful 

 caterpillars in paper boxes in the other; while sometimes 

 a rabbit, sometimes a guinea-pig or perhaps a squirrel, was 

 lodged belowin a cell cunningly constructed of theDelphin 

 classics and Ainsworth's dictionary." Thentherewere pike 

 and goodly trout to be caught in the Arun, not to mention 

 big eels for which night lines were set in the manner and 

 place recommended byan old pensionerwho was employed 

 to drill the boys. 



St John remained at Midhurst from 182 1 to 1825, and 

 is next to be heard of in 1828 as a clerk in the Treasury, 

 an appointment which he owed, no doubt, to the influence 

 of one or another of his relatives, for the competitive sys- 

 temwasnot applied to the Civil Serviceuntil long after this 

 date. And a very unsatisfactory clerk he proved, thorough- 

 ly unfitted, or at least incurably disinclined for sedentary 

 occupation. His nature recoiled from 



The long, mechanic pacings to-and-fro. 

 The set grey life, the apathetic end. 



vi 



