RADBURNE. 61 



understand all this talk of stomachs. I have a bag, and I 

 put what I like into it ! " 



On another occasion, when all the county was in 

 mourning for some very important personage, she appeared 

 at Derby races dressed in white from head to foot to show 

 her dislike of what she considered an absurdity, and much 

 scandalized her neighbours. 



The next squire, Edward Sacheverell, whose birth 

 is quoted in his father's hunting-diary, served in the First 

 Guards (now the Grenadiers), through the Peninsular War, 

 up to 1813, when he came home invalided from the effects 

 of fever. When he arrived at Radburne he found that, in 

 his absence, his father had died, and he thought his sister 

 most heartless, because, on his arrival, he found her playing 

 the harp in the hall. What was news and a shock to him was 

 naturally unfait accompli to her, the squire having died six 

 months before. Of course all the match-making mammas 

 in the county now laid their plans to secure such an eligible 

 parti as the young squire for their daughters, but he 

 disappointed them sadly. For at Ashbourne there lived 

 Mrs. Wilmot, widow of the Rev. Edward Wilmot, late 

 Rector of Kirk Langley. She had a daughter, a very 

 lovely girl of seventeen, who had been the young squire's 

 playmate from her childhood. Without saying a word to 

 any one he left home one day and returned three days 

 later with his old playfellow as his bride. They had been 

 married at Ashbourne at eight o'clock in the morning, and 

 only six persons were supposed to be present — the bride 

 and bridegroom, the officiating clergyman, the clerk, Miss 

 Dale as bridesmaid, who lived next door to the bride, and 

 another witness. A seventh person was discovered, nearly 

 fifty years afterwards, to have been present, viz. a little 

 boy, who had hidden himself in the gallery, and long after 

 described the whole scene to the youngest son of the 

 marriage, dwelling on the brown coat and brass buttons of 

 the bridegroom, and the short-waisted embroidered muslin 

 of the bride. 



His soldierly instincts stood him in good stead during 



