294 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



in his behaviour after his resignation. Of course it is 

 now a matter of history that things did not run smoothly, 

 and it would not have been at all surprising if he had 

 evinced a certain amount of satisfaction at the course of 

 events, but he did nothing of the kind. His only answer, 

 if told of any piece of bad luck, would probably be, " It's 

 happened before." 



And yet the enforced idleness was very irksome to 

 him. " It's the hardest work I've ever put in yet," he 

 remarked to an old friend, alluding to the difficulty of 

 passing the time. It seemed odd that a man who had 

 ridden, and lived in the country all his life, should choose 

 a house in Uttoxeter for his residence, and not even keep 

 a pony. He came out hunting once at Chartley on a 

 horse of Mr. Fort's, and seemed to enjoy himself, but he 

 was so stiff and sore the next day that he said he would 

 not do it again for twenty pounds. When pressed to 

 come out hunting he had always some excuse. He had 

 always ridden three-hundred-guinea horses, and he could 

 not come down to a forty pounder, he would, say ; or, " It 

 was all very well for me uncle Tom. He had horses 

 given to him, and kept too." But it is not improbable 

 that the fatal disease, which at last laid him low, was 

 insidiously at work, and that, as an old friend of his said, 

 it was really misery to him to ride. He would have a 

 day's fishing now and then with his neighbour, Dr. Fletcher, 

 whom he considered the best fly-fisherman he ever saw, or 

 go to shoot sometimes at Blithfield, as he had been wont 

 to do in his official days. But he was always ailing. He 

 came to the Puppy Show in 1899, but did not feel u]d to 

 staying for the luncheon. A few days afterwards the 

 writer saw him in his house, looking far from well, and 

 unlike himself, for his only answer to the query, " Don't 

 you think Tancred " (the prize puppy) " a bit long in the 

 back ? " was, " Yes ; perhaps he is." Had he been well it 

 would probably have been, " No, I don't," or, at least, a 

 dissenting remark of some kind. A day or two after that 

 he took to his bed and never rallied. " I cannot make it 



