MR. MICHAEL BASS, M.P. 125 



Miss Meynell came home together. They had tea on the 

 way home. The tea was green, and Mr. Bass said it 

 poisoned him. But the Trusley brook was the worst of 

 all. He would get over it somehow ; he was an old man 

 then, and did not want to ride at it, so he waded across, 

 and I drove his horse over to him, and then jumped mine 

 over. I tried to persuade him not to do it, but he would, 

 and he caught a chill, and was never the same man after- 

 wards. He went to Putney for his health, and that did 

 him good. Once, out with the Warwickshire, he lamed 

 his horse over the first fence : the poor brute had put his 

 shoulder out. I took him to a farm, and fomented him 

 for two hours. Then I put him in a floater, and started 

 for Birmingham. Mr. Bass overtook me, and told me to 

 take the horse to the Hen and Chickens, and then I should 

 have done with him, ' for,' said he, ' I've sold him.' 

 ' Then you've done well,' I said. And he told me he had 

 told some one that the horse had put his shoulder out, 

 and the gentleman would not believe it, so Mr. Bass said 

 he might have him at his own price. So the horse was 

 sold for twenty-five pounds : well sold, too, for they had 

 to shoot him in the end." 



Then we went and looked at the portrait of the man 

 we had been talking about, and certainly the keen face 

 which gazed out from the picture-frame was no bad index 

 of the bold spirit which played so prominent a part in the 

 world of business, politics, philanthropy, and sport, for the 

 long term of eighty-four years. 



This digression about men, however, must give place 

 to the doings of the hounds, and in 1835, in spite of the 

 advanced age of Tom Leedham, who was now seventy-one 

 years old, they showed capital sport, as may be seen from 

 the following accounts of good days which appeared in 

 the Derby Mercury, the Spo7'ting Magazine, JBeU's Lifey 

 etc. In the first mention of the hounds a terrible accusa- 

 tion is brought against the gentlemen of Derbyshire, from 

 which, however, by this time they have nobly cleared 

 themselves. 



