160 SPORTING STORIES 



parishioners were disappointed (?) of the evening service by 

 a notice on the church doors that the parson had been 

 obliged to start that afternoon in order to be in time for a 

 distant " meet." 



Another sporting cleric was Parson Harvey, who was 

 wont to hang about Tattersalls on sale days, Tattersall 

 would never have him awakened as he sat there snoring, 

 with the butt-end of a pound of mutton chops sticking out 

 of his pocket. " Let him sleep, poor fellow," he would 

 say ; " it's a sweeter place for him than his garret in 

 Pimlico." Harvey had formerly held a living in the gift 

 of the celebrated racing and hunting man, Mr Vernon. 

 Long sermons were Vernon's abhorrence. He had pre- 

 sented the church with a hollow sounding-board, which 

 was placed immediately above the pulpit, and could be 

 raised or lowered by a secret spring fixed in his pew, which 

 was just beneath ; and directly he found the homily growing 

 tedious he would press the spring, down would come the 

 board like an extinguisher, and beneath it the preacher 

 would disappear like a harlequin. 



Vernon it was who, finding that poachers were not 

 deterred by the usual notices, set up boards upon which, 

 in large letters, were the words, " Anyone found trespassing 

 on these grounds will be immediately spiffiicated." The 

 unknown word, suggesting unimaginable tortures, struck 

 more terror into the hearts of the poachers than all the steel 

 traps and spring-guns that had before menaced them, and 

 for a long time the birds remained undisturbed. Parson 

 Harvey was just the spiritual adviser for such a squire — 

 one who could with equal facility follow a fox, crack a 

 bottle, or preach a sermon. But unfortunately the bishop 

 had not the same appreciation of these varied qualities as 

 had the patron ; and thus it was that the poor parson, still 

 orthodox to his tastes, became a waif and a loiterer at 

 " the Corner." 



Even the racecourse oddities have almost disappeared, 

 and such a personage as Matthias Elderton (better known 

 as " Jerry "), the list-seller, would now be an impossibility. 

 He was the king of the card-sellers, and a sort of Jack 

 Pudding, who made fun for the lookers-on during the intervals 



