128 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LORD DARLINGTON AND MR. THORNHTLL. 



" Lately passing o'er Barnsdale, I happened to spy 

 A fox stealing on, with the hounds in full cry : 

 ' Tis Darlington, sure, for his voice I well know, 

 Crying 'Forward! hark forward!' for Skelbrook below. 

 With my Ballymoonoora, 

 The hounds of old Raby for me !" 



j& LT HOUGH Lord Darlington's heart was so 

 $ty truly with his " spotted darlings/' as to justify 

 Mr. " Antonio" Ferguson's regular remark to those 

 who visited his pleasant wayside inn, that " his lord- 

 ship never looks like himself after these London 

 visits, till he's had a hit of fox-hunting/' we shall 

 give no sketch of him in scarlet here. Is it not 

 dashed off to the life in the pages of The Chase/' 

 and engraved in the memory of Bedale sportsmen ? 

 We are about to deal with him, not as he appeared 

 with an embroidered fox on his collar, and his horn 

 at the saddle-bow, waving his hounds into Gatherley 

 Moor, but as he was known to every lover of the 

 Heath, quietly cantering towards the Ditch stables, 

 with Sam and Will Chifney on either side of him. 

 He was born in the same year as Frank Buckle ; and, 

 although he only died in February, 1 842, at the age 

 of seventy-six, he had begun to run horses in 1794. 

 Hence, even in 1827, he seemed to feel so acutely, 

 when he visited Newmarket, that 



" Well-a-day ! his date was fled : 

 His sporting brethren all were dead I" 



