SAM CHIFNEY. 105 



St. Leger himself, and won the trial in a canter. 

 " A pretty fellow you are to bring me back this way 

 without trying the horses !" was WilPs remark, when 

 he met his brother at his own stable-door; and " No y 

 no ! that won't do, Will / know you too well to briny 

 them back without having it out of them/' was the dry- 

 good-humoured response. The result of the confer- 

 ence was that a good stake was put on Memnon, and 

 Will won 650 guineas by his trial mount. 



As might have been expected in a man of his tem- 

 perament, Sam was slow to anger, and of few words. 

 He was never happier than when sauntering along,, 

 gun in hand, and watching his favourite yellow-and- 

 white pointer, Banker, wriggling his stern down the 

 stubbles ; and this silent system was much more to 

 his mind than the " fast and furious" sport of which 

 he and his brother often partook with Mr. Thornhill, 

 among the pheasant preserves of Biddlesworth. He 

 was a great cocker, and delighted in a breed of 

 " Vauxhall Clarke" game fowls, which he kept at his 

 seventy-acre Fidget Farm. This stud-farm was per- 

 fect of its kind, and situated about a mile and a 

 quarter from the town, at the extremity of theBury- 

 hill gallop. It was here that he had a small plant- 

 ing, regularly fenced with wire, and laid out with 

 artificial earths for his pet foxes ; and he would sit 

 for hours in a summer evening, watching them come 

 out to feed and play. Many a gallant bagman drew 

 his breath in this little nook ; and when Lord Dar- 

 lington visited Newmarket (which he never did in the 

 October meetings), he generally went on there, not 

 so much to look over the young things, as to get a 

 summer wind-scent of the " Charlies," to keep his 

 spirits up till he could again throw his leather horn- 

 belt across his shoulders, and again enter in his diary 

 that the <( darling hounds behaved like jewels." If 

 the two Chifneys were not well up with the jewels 

 in some of their fastest things across the Bedale 



