CAPTAIN DAWSON. 193 



Edmund's. Galway was huntsman, and very good sport 

 he showed. Captain Dawson hunted a good deal of the 

 hill country now occupied by the Dove Valley, as well as 

 the parts round Rocester and up to Cubley, and as far as 

 Leigh on the Staifordshire side. 



At the end of the first season Mr. Hyde-Smith, who 

 married Miss Kempson of Coton, took the hounds, and he, 

 in turn, was succeeded by Captain Cotton. Meanwhile 

 Mr. Crowder, who resided at the Vicarage, Ashbourne, 

 started a pack on his own account, and here, in 1875, 

 Mr. E. P. Rawnsley, afterwards Master of the Southwold, 

 joined him. About 1876 Captain Cotton sold the Rocester 

 hounds, which had always been kennelled at Rocester, to 

 Mr. Frank Arkwright of Overton. 



Captain Dawson is an enthusiastic fisherman, and for 

 many years has gone to Norway, frequently with his 

 brother-in-law, the late Captain Goodwin. A forty-four 

 pounder was his record fish, a model of which hangs in his 

 smoking-room. In another room there is a capital picture 

 of the Sprite, the famous cream-coloured cob which 

 Captain Stepney sold to Mr. Arthur Lyon of Clownholme, 

 whose daughter was Captain Dawson's first wife. She 

 was the mother of Miss Eleanor Dawson (now Mrs. 

 Crossman), who, on her capital black mare, Ruth, was so 

 well known with the Meynell, and still more so afterwards 

 in Essex. There Ruth won a point-to-point race or two. 

 She was but a green thing when Miss Dawson first had 

 her, but she soon learned her trade in those capable 

 hands. 



Her father is an uncommonly good shot, but always 

 uses glasses when he shoots. They tell an anecdote of 

 how he was shooting once and it came on to rain heavily. 

 Mr. Kempson and others began chaffing him, and saying 

 how he would be done now. To their great surprise he 

 bowled over the rocketing pheasants as easily as possible. 

 At last some one said, " Why, the rain has no effect on 

 your spectacles ! " 



" Why should it ? " he said. " They are in my pocket ! " 



VOL. 1. 



