Drax Abbey. 269 



He once suffered a good deal with rheumatism in 

 " the round bone," but he had latterly hit on a won- 

 derful cure for it, and no man was more thankful for 

 the hint. His hounds which went to Scriven Park 

 in the summer were always brought out in prime 

 condition. The way he would get them out of cover 

 to Sir Charles was perfectly marvellous. He was a 

 bold rider, and as hard as pinwire, and had excellent 

 nerves for a man of his age, nearly sixty. Added to 

 this, he had a deal of quiet fun, which was heightened 

 by a squeaky voice, and a most pleasant twinkle of 

 the eye. He married the house-maid at Scriven Park 

 for his second wife about five years before his death, 

 and Sir Charles's way of repeating the annual report 

 made to him from the kennels, of u another whip, Sir 

 Charles, last night," was very droll. Like Mr. Robin- 

 son and Mr. Lloyd, he seems to have died quite easily, 

 as his features were calm and unchanged. When his 

 body was taken out of the river, the searchers leant 

 it against the trunk of a tree in order to let the water 

 flow away. As this fine old servant stood there a 

 few minutes, with his hunting-whip still in his hand, 

 those who saw him said they could hardly persuade 

 themselves that he was not still alive. 



Drax Abbey was granted by Henry VIII. to the 

 Constables of Everingham for their valour at Flodden 

 Field, and Lord Herries sold it in 1849 to Colonel or 

 " Hamlet" Thompson. The Abbey is gone, but the 

 old sites still live in name. A chestnut pony and a 

 few shorthorn calves were ruminating on the herbage 

 of Ave Maria Lane, and wandering at intervals down 

 Paternoster Row. The Abbey Oak, out of which 

 many an old fox has been flogged, when the Bramham 

 Moor or the Badsworth drew the neutral cover of Bar- 

 low Hag, had still some sap in its branches, and a 

 coffin lid, a bracket, or a boss-stone half hid among 

 lobelias and fuchsias in season are now the sole anti- 

 quities. 



