tibc IRcw 3oM IRussell 347 



anybody, hast the' ? " '' Naw." " Robbed anybody ? " 

 " Naw." " Alius paid the' tithe ? " " Iss." " Hasn' 

 meddled \vi' any other man's wive ? " " Naw." " Then 

 tell the devil to go to hell." And so the poor man died 

 in peace. 



Russell retained his wonderful vigour and vitality to 

 the last. Mr Nicholas Snow, Master of the Stars of the 

 West, gives us a glimpse of the veteran, in describing a 

 run he had with the Devon and Somerset in 1881. 'I 

 can well remember seeing him,' he says, ' as he crossed 

 the moors from Culbone with the leading hounds, and 

 shall never forget his ringing cheer as they broke from 

 the river to Badgery and on to Brendon Common. 

 Several people passed the remark, " Look at Russell 

 leading across Badgery ! " ' They might well make the 

 exclamation, for the grand old sportsman was then 

 within three months of his 86th birthday ! 



But he had run pretty nearly to the length of his 

 tether. One more season he was seen out with the Devon 

 and Somerset, and it was plain to every one that he was 

 fast breaking up. On the 15th of October 1882 he 

 wrote to a friend : ' I am going to London on Tuesday 

 morning to marry Mr Curzon, the Duchess of Beaufort's 

 nephew, to Miss Basset-Williams of Pilton House, 

 but I'm more fit for bed than a railway carriage.' He 

 was very anxious to attend this function, for the lady's 

 father was his good friend and one of the keenest 

 sportsmen in Devon, afterwards Master of the Devon 

 and Somerset Staghounds, whilst the lady herself was 

 a bold horsewoman, who could boast of riding a lineal 

 descendant of that Katerfelto whom Whyte Melville 

 has immortalised. But it was not to be. He was too 

 ill to leave his bed on the wedding-day. For a time 



