Aylesby Manor. 461 



find it. He came out on a horse which his son had 

 purchased from Captain Percy Williams, and was de- 

 lighted with his mount, as he did not previously think 

 that it was up to his weight. His friends were sur- 

 prised at his wonderful spirits ; and there is no doubt 

 he over-exerted himself in clambering up the side of 

 one of the Holderness drains. He chaffed an old 

 friend who followed, and required some help from a 

 hunting whip. Five minutes after that he must have 

 felt dizzy and dismounted for a minute. Only one 

 person, a girl, saw him ; and she said that he stood 

 for a minute or two holding his horse's rein, and 

 then sank down as his hand slackened its hold. He 

 must, in fact, have died as he stood. There were 

 few men more beloved and honoured, and the Royal 

 lost a very useful shorthorn and sheep judge by his 

 death. 



Hull was plenteously placarded by its four ex- 

 pectant M.P.'s, to prove that " Codlin, not Short, 's 

 your friend" in Downing Street ; and we were glad 

 to be over the Humber, and among the sixty-eight 

 big and thick-fleeced rams at Aylesby Manor Quid, 

 Patron, Rifleman, Romulus, and Co. These Lei- 

 cesters are from the flock of eighty years' standing, 

 which the Philip Skipworths made with Garrick, 

 Granby, and Aylesby A (for whom the Leicestershire 

 Society made a 3OO/. offer in vain), and which Mr. 

 Torr has kept up by constant resort to head quarters 

 at Normanton, Barrow, and Holmpierrepont. It was 

 the ram-letting day, but some familiar faces John 

 Booth, Nainby, Frank lies, Gibbons, and Tom Brooks 

 were lacking when we sat down in the old barn, 

 whose rafters once rung with their merry jokes and 

 speeches, and we could only drink to their memories. 

 The old kennel yard below is full of yearling Booth 

 bulls. Few could recognise in it now any traces of 

 its original mission ; but even before the days of the 

 Pretender, the combined packs of Pelham and Tyr- 



