First Whipper-in. 143 



I 'd done anything wrong. He said. " No, no, that is not it, 

 but you've pounded me; my heart failed me at the last, and 

 I dare not have it when I caught sight of the snow in the 

 ditch ; had it been fifty years ago, you wouldn't have left 

 me there." And the tears rolled down the old gentleman's 

 cheeks the whole of the time. He would have two pads cut 

 off, down by the elbow, to make paper-knives of, in remem- 

 brance of the day on which he had been first pounded, after 

 sixty years of hunting. There is no doubt that he felt it 

 very much, and he never forgot this occasion. After he had 

 retired from the hunting field, whenever I went to see him 

 at Newcastle, he would always remind me of this occurrence, 

 and seldom referred to it without tears coming to his eyesj 

 — poor old gentleman. I ought to have said that Mr. 

 Harvey was in at the death several minutes before any of 

 the " field " arrived, showing what a gallant old sportsman, 

 then in his seventy-second or third year,* he was to ^ the 

 last. This was his last season but one in the hunting-field. 

 During the off season of 1877, Mr. Harvey had a nasty fall 

 in the street at Newcastle, as he was returning from his 

 early morning's ride on the Town Moor ; this shook him 

 very much, and later on in the year, during the hunting 

 season, he had a bad fall by Dene Bridge wood, his horse drop- 

 ping short into a gutter ; no bones were broken, but he got 

 such a severe shaking that he never recovered it, and could 

 not wear it off, and no wonder, for he was then about 

 seventy-four years of age ; I know that he was born in leap 



{ " Cold, calculating thoughts succeed, 

 With timid doubt and wary deed, 

 Back on the past he turns his eye. 

 Remembering with an envious sigh. 

 The bolder feats of youth." 



• Mr. Harvey was born on February 29th, 1804 (leap year). 



