1861] NIMROD LONG. 93 



management. He showed the very best of sport, and no 

 huntsman in Enoland was better mounted. Nimrod Long 

 was born to be a huntsman, for he first saw the light in 

 1835, at Badminton, where his father, rare old Will Long, 

 served under four Dukes of Beaufort and hunted hounds 

 for thirty-one years ; and he was entered to the saddle 

 when only a month old, as the following extract from the 

 " Memoirs of the Rev. John Russell " will show. Speaking 

 of Will Long, Mr. Russell's historian says — 



" The last time Russell met him he inquired if his brother IMichael were yet 

 alive. ' Yes,' replied Russell, ' and well too.' ' I'm glad to hear that,' responded 

 the veteran. ' He gave my son Nimrod his tirst mount. Took him out of 

 my wife's arms and held him on the saddle when he was only a month old. 

 Please give him my duty.' " 



When five years of age Long went hunting regularly 

 on a donkey, and two or three years later his portrait was 

 painted in the Badminton Lawn picture, seated on the 

 same fiery steed, and by the side of his father. To show, 

 also, how thorough was the equestrian part of his 

 education looked after, it might be mentioned that when a 

 school-boy, the late Duke of Beaufort (then Marquis of 

 Worcester), kept two horses for him to ride hunting, and 

 when that nobleman's regiment, the 7 th Hussars, was 

 stationed at Kilkenny, LoDg went there to help take 

 charge of his Lordship's harriers. Nimrod Long's first 

 chance came in 1850, for in the February of that year. 

 Bob Nash, the second whipper-in, was taken ill, and as 

 young Nimrod knew all the hounds by name, His Grace 

 selected him to fill the vacant place till the end of the 

 season. The appointment was confirmed in the summer ; 

 and he continued to act as second whipper-in to his father 

 till 1853, when the first whipper-in, Charles Long, had a 

 bad accident in the hunting-field, and Nimrod obtained his 

 promotion, being at the time probably the youngest first 

 whipper-in in a big establishment. He acted as first 

 whipper-in for two seasons, and then left to learn farming 

 with one of His Grace's tenants, and afterwards going to 

 a farmer in Berkshire. But this was too peaceful and 



