THE CRITICS OF 187 



been surpassed. But it was for his endurance of hard- 

 ships, exposure to weather, scanty fare, and personal 

 discomfort, and for a courage which never flinched 

 when suffering from painful sickness and exhausting 

 disease, that he was pre-eminent. When it is remem- 

 bered that he rode on horseback from the Orkneys to 

 Kensington in the severe winter of 1864-5, arriving at 

 home, in the snow of a February night, with fourpence 

 in his pocket, on the back of a Highland garron, 

 which he had bought for ^^7 10s., little surprise will be 

 felt that he never recovered from the effects of the 

 journey. For four years he was unable to lie down, 

 and at night was packed in an armchair. During this 

 last painful period of his life he regularly wrote sport- 

 ing and agricultural leaders for the Daily News, then 

 mainly owned by Mr. Robinson and Mr. Labouchere, 

 who would have poured liquid gold down his throat if 

 it had been possible to keep him alive. But it was not 

 to be. To use his own expression, all the wheels were 

 down, and after the spring of 1870 he passed away. 

 The Hon. Francis Lawley, to whose admirable book 

 on " The Life and Times of * The Druid,' " I, in common 

 with many sportsmen, am deeply indebted, applied this 

 epitaph to him : 



" No pearl ever lay under Oman's dark water 

 More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee." 



It is a comfort to know that his dying bed was 

 soothed by the unwearied ministrations and tender 

 solicitude of his wife, by the constant affection of 

 his devoted friend, Mr. John Thornton, and by the 



