XTbe }£avls of l^arborougb 79 



scending to bathos if I say that what, next to these 

 loyal henchmen, strikes any one who has been privileged 

 to visit the ancestral seat of the Earls of Yarborough 

 are the wonderful cellars. Festooned with the undis- 

 turbed cobwebs of centuries, they seem the fit habitat 

 for that ' Spirit of Eld,' which George Borrow was for 

 ever invoking. They tell of decades of hard drinking, 

 and, as one wanders through the interminable galleries, 

 one can almost endorse the views of an enthusiastic 

 fox-hunter, that ' in a frost you might hunt in them.' 

 The stables, too, are justly renowned as the neatest in 

 England, and the horses in them, all thoroughbreds, and 

 many bred on the estate, would be hard to beat anywhere. 

 As to the sort of men who follow the Brocklesby hounds, 

 I will let my old friend Nevill Fitt speak. 



' I have spoken of the Brocklesby as one of the 

 foundation stones of the modern foxhound. Not less 

 celebrated is Lincolnshire altogether, and especially this 

 part of it, for producing hunters, and many a good one 

 has drawn his first breath on the wolds. The grey 

 Peter Simple, who won such world-wide fame, came, 

 I believe, from the Brocklesby country ; and the no less 

 celebrated Gay Lad was foaled in a village near Market 

 Rasen, just on the borders of the Burton country, and, 

 ridden for the most part by Captain Skipworth, earned 

 his first laurels in the home circuit. His breeder and 

 first owner, Mr Davy, was a very tall, heavy man, and 

 once, having occasion to ride the horse himself, somewhat 

 unexpectedly, went without food or sleep for three days, 

 to reduce himself to the weight ; and, although I have 

 heard, I am afraid to trust my memory to show how 

 much he lowered himself in the time. I know it was 

 almost incredible, and, had I not heard it from his own 



