LORD DARLINGTON AND MR. THORNHILL. 129 



that he hardly cared to join the party at the Club- 

 rooms in the evening. However, he found his way 

 there, for the first time after a long interval, during 

 the Craven Meeting of that year, and after matching 

 Memnon against Enamel, with Lord Exeter, knocked 

 up Will Chifney, about twelve at night, to learn his 

 opinion of this 1,000 guineas A. F. venture. Four 

 thousand guineas had been refused for Memnon 

 before the St. Leger; and the Chifneys generally 

 believed that his lordship gave something like 3,000 

 guineas for him. He was a long, loose, big, and 

 leggy horse, and supposed to be game a point on 

 which the brothers Chifney always considered that 

 Bill Scott had overrated him. He had, nevertheless, 

 run remarkably well in the hands of the latter, as he 

 defeated The Alderman, after a desperate punishing 

 race, in the Champagne; carried off the York Spring 

 Leger cleverly ; and came in three lengths ahead of 

 thirty, the largest field that ever showed at the St. 

 Leger post. The tumble of Fleur-de-lis, and the 

 consequent disappointment of The Alderman, con- 

 tributed greatly to this last result ; but the elegant 

 Actaeon, who was third, defeated him in the follow- 

 ing August, for a Subscription Purse, over Knaves- 

 mire, in one of the very finest finishes ever ridden 

 there. The race was over the Old Two-mile Course ; 

 but it was only run in earnest three-quarters of a mile, 

 which suited Harry Edwards, who knew that his horse 

 could go the fastest, to a nicety, and enabled him to 

 defeat Sam's terrific rush by a bare head, when he 

 brought Memnon, with a stroke of the whalebone, 

 which might have been heard to Bishopthorpe, in 

 the last three strides from the chair. " By Jove, 

 Sam's nailed him ! " was the extatic expression of 

 "Will at this moment, as he fairly sprang into the air, 

 from the form outside the weighing-house, nearly 

 upsetting the present Tommy Shepherd and a group 

 of Yorkshire jocks in his descent. Lord Darlington 



