394 Ikfngs of tbe TRofc, IRifle, an& (Bun 



The Vicar hesitated. 



"You see, Mr. Osbaldeston, the boy has no father. 

 I stand in loco parentis to him, and " 



But the impetuous young Master of the Burton had 

 an answer to every objection, and at last the Vicar was 

 persuaded to grant the request. 



Two days later the boy-baronet, mounted on Tom 

 Sebright's grey pony, was duly entered to hounds, and 

 had his first taste of the sport of kings among the cubs, 

 under the eye of the finest all-round sportsman in 

 England. 



With such a Mentor it is not surprising that the lad 

 soon became not only an excellent rider but a good 

 shot. For George Osbaldeston, already noted as the 

 best game-shot in the country, initiated his young 

 protege in the mysteries of shooting and taught him how 

 to handle a gun, till the pupil was nearly the equal of 

 the master. 



Sir Richard Sutton, whose name is writ large in the 

 annals of sport as one of the grandest all-round 

 sportsmen of the nineteenth century, was born at Brant 

 Broughton, in Lincolnshire, on December i6th, 1798. 

 His father, John Sutton, was the eldest son of Sir 

 Richard, the first baronet, but died before his father, 

 leaving one son, the subject of my sketch, aged two years. 



The Suttons, of Sutton-upon-Trent, had been a family 

 of note in the Midlands from the time of the Norman 

 Conquest, and became allied in the thirteenth century 

 to the noble house of Lexington by the marriage of 

 Richard de Sutton with Alice, the sister of Robert de 

 Lexington. And for six hundred years they have left 





