SOME LATTER-DAY PENCILLERS 31 



taking with him, not only a handsome fortune, but the 

 esteem and good wishes of all who had ever had any 

 dealings with him. 



But the greatest sportsman and " doucest lad o' them 

 a'," to my thinking, was John Jackson. 



" Jock o' Fairfield," as he was called, loved a fight of any 

 kind. Everything in the shape of a contest had an 

 irresistible fascination for him — a foot-race, a horse-race, a 

 cock-fight, a bruising match, seemed to send his blood 

 dancing through his veins with excitement and delight. 

 It is, of course, as one of the great magnates of the betting 

 ring — a very Napoleon among " pencillers " — that John 

 Jackson was best known ; but he was something far more 

 than this. He was a keen all-round sportsman ; a first-rate 

 judge of a race-horse, a greyhound, a shorthorn, or a ram ; 

 as acute a judge of cricket as of jockeyship ; as much at 

 home in the hunting-field as in the Subscription Rooms; 

 never more in his element than at the ring side cheering on 

 his idol Tom Sayers to victory : a man, take him for all 

 in all, who had had but one equal in his line — John Gully. 



Jackson was born in the year 1827, at Tunstall, near 

 Catterick, where his nephew, I believe, still farms the 

 paternal acres ; for the father was a small farmer, and young 

 John was bred to the same calling. But from his earliest 

 days nothing could keep him to the plough-tail when there 

 was a race-meeting, a steeple-chase, or a cricket-match 

 anywhere within five-and-twenty miles. In vain his father 

 leathered him soundly. It had not the slightest effect 

 on John. 



Presently, to love of sport for its own sake was added 

 the true English craving to back his fancy. He must bet, 

 but, young as he was, his financial instincts were strong ; 

 he would do the thing methodically. So Master John 

 borrowed five pounds from a friend, a saddler in Catterick, 

 and having changed it into half-crowns — that coin being 

 the standard of wagering in those parts — John set off to a 

 big cricket match in the neighbourhood and made his first 

 book. It speaks well for his astuteness that he doubled 

 his fiver, repaid the loan, and found himself with an un- 

 hampered capital of forty half-crowns. But, Jupiter 



