THE FITZHERBERTS. 89 



the latter, he asked if he had recovered from his annoy- 

 ance. " No, I haven't," he answered shortly ; " I call it 

 most outrageous." " Well, you see," said the first speaker, 

 " I have made it a practice all my life to go pretty much 

 where the hounds go ; but you are so totally unaccustomed 

 to that sort of thing that of course you would not under- 

 stand it!" Needless to say the cap fitted to a nicety. 

 He was the first huntinsj-man in Derbyshire to wear a 

 beard, though his brother, the Colonel, who came to 

 Somersal in 1866, did likewise. Very white they were 

 latterly, and people irreverently styled the brothers 

 " Moses and Aaron." Once Mr. Davenport Bromley, who 

 also had a fiowing white beard, turned up at the meet 

 with them, upon which a reverend gentleman, who was 

 not much of a credit to his cloth, exclaimed, " Hallo, here 

 are Moses and Aaron and all the prophets ! " Whereupon 

 Sir William, who thought the remark highly impertinent, 

 retorted with, " Yes, and you had better take a good look 

 at them, for you are never likely to see them again." 



As a breeder of horses he was fairly successful. Baily's 

 Beads, by Hurworth, was about the best, and a wonder at 

 water. He was said to have cleared twenty-eight feet 

 over the Cubley brook with Mr. (now Sir Richard) Fitz- 

 Herbert, and got clean over the Foston mill-race, eighteen 

 feet of open water, jumping twenty -four feet, with Mr. 

 Beresford FitzHerbert. The latter also had about the 

 best of it on another good one, Firedrake by Prizefighter, 

 during the greater part of a memorable run, in 1863, from 

 Radburne Rough. He slipped into the Church Broughton 

 brook towards the end, but the pair were up at the finish, 

 which was near Sudbury station. This was an extra- 

 ordinary good gallop, and an account of it will appear 

 elsewhere. Mr. Walter Boden, who was riding a grey, 

 purchased from Mr. John Wright, will never forget it. 

 This horse once jumped the palings out of Sudbury Park 

 with him. The Honourable Edward Coke, of Longford, 

 and Colonel Reginald Buller on Horninglow, a steeple- 

 chase horse, were also right in front all the way, while 



