142 IRISH SPORT AND SPORTSMEN. 



ingly. Early in 1854, on a Saturday, in Leicestershire, a weedy 

 Birdcatcher horse gave him an awkward fall at timber ; and he 

 felt his collar-bone go crack. But, getting up again, he had not 

 gone three fields when a piece of water appeared, and the horse 

 never rising at it, he got under him, and was at once extricated 

 half-drowned and much bruised, and, as it turned out, with his 

 collar-bone broken in another place. On the following Tuesday, 

 however, he was at his post in the House of Lords, and spoke for 

 forty-five minutes without a check, on the impending Russian war. 

 We should state, however, that the deep interest which the Mar- 

 quis has ever taken in politics made hunting and the stud second- 

 ary considerations ; and the rapidity and seeming carelessness 

 with which preparations were made for a visit to Melton or The 

 Shires were quite appalling, and aff'orded a remarkable contrast 

 to the practice of the present, when Mason, Newcombe, Darby, 

 and Sheward require many weeks' notice before collecting a Lei- 

 cestershire stud for fastidious gentlemen. On one day the Marquis 

 would appear on a plain, hunting-like horse, on the next on a 

 weedy thoroughbred, on the third on an ancient far advanced in 

 his teens, or very groggy on his legs, and perhaps a couple of 

 awkward horses to ride completed the stud. From Melton they 

 were then perhaps transported to do duty over the stone walls in 

 Galway, or among the intricate fences in Kilkenny or Kildare. 



" * It seemed a perfect matter of indifi'erence to him what he 

 rode, as the following anecdote will illustrate. Passing through 

 Dublin, he called on a well-known friend of every sportsman. 

 ' Hunt,' he said, ' can you let me have a horse to ride with the 

 Kildare Hounds .'" ' I am very sorry, my Lord, I have nothing to 

 offer you just at present,' was the reply, ' What ! not a horse in 

 your stable ?' ' Nothing, my Lord, but a one-eyed horse 1 bought 

 from a miller to carry a whip. I hear he has been hunted, but I 

 know nothing about him, and he is in moderate trim.' ' Never 

 mind ; send him on. I will be at the meet.' 



" 'The well-known covert of Laragh was the first the hounds 

 drew ; and the first fence was the brook (now bridged over), simply 

 a ditch about fourteen feet in width, with a high bank on the op- 

 posite side. The field diverged to easy parts of the fence ; but the 

 Marquis on the chestnut (afterwards called Nelson), came straight 

 down at it, got well over, and went first in a gallop of seventeen 

 minutes. 



