DANEBURY DAYS 



him when he wished to see the Heath once more. The 

 Marquis's taste for the Turf was not an hereditary one. 

 His father's heart was with hound and horn. He loved to 

 halloo " the red rascal " over the rides ftxr better than watch- 

 ing the Leger horses close up round the Red-house turn. 

 The men of the Midlands still speak of him as quite a repre- 

 sentative sportsman with Will Goodall and the " Sir Harry," 

 whom they lost so early. He would hardly have stepped 

 aside to see a race ; but a scarcity of foxes in Charnwood 

 Forest, or finding himself above twelve stone on the scales, 

 would have sorely vexed his soul. His son cared for none of 

 these things. Still he could not bear to see the Quorn with- 

 out a master, and he stepped boldly into the breach when 

 Mr. Clowes resigned in '66. He wore the horn at his saddle- 

 bow for conformity's sake, but he never blew it, and he 

 let the field go its own way, and hunted the country on no 

 system. A bit of a gallop, a check, and then trotting off 

 to sift a favourite gorse for a fresh fox, jumped much more 

 with his humour than an old-fashioned hunting run, where 

 the hounds had to puzzle it out. Often, when his hounds 

 had reached the meet, ten or twelve miles away, he was 

 hardly out of bed, and he would turn up " on wheels," and 

 occasionally from London by special train, and give Wilson 

 the word to draw, when half the field had gone home. No 

 wonder that caricatures were drawn, and squibs flew gaily 

 about, and that even Leicestershire said it would rather be 

 bled in the purse-vein than have the country hunted gratis in 

 such fashion. Satirical verses failed to sour him. He took 

 the sting out of their tail by reprinting them at his own 

 private press, and posted them far and wide. On the last 

 day of his mastership he slipped quietly away to the station, 

 and when they looked for him to give him a parting cheer 

 he had been wellnigh gone an hour. The honour of being 

 " the man who belongs to The Duke, or The Earl, or little 

 Lecturer," was no burden to him. He took quite naturally 

 to the Turf from the first, enfolded under the wing of 

 Danebury. In 1862, not six people at Newmarket knew 

 who the slim lad was on the grey cob; but the ring soon 

 saw that he was a veritable Hampshire ambassador when 

 he put down the money so unflinchingly on a Danebury pot. 

 To John Day's suggestion that in his position he was morally 

 bound to have a nice yearling or two of his own, he leant 

 no ungracious ear. When the rivalry round the Hampton 



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