FULWAR CRAVEN. 107 



rabbit-shooting' amongst his tenantry, with, of course, a 

 jollification afterwards; and formany years he was a regular 

 attendant at Hungerford Market in Berkshire, where they 

 still tell some quaint stories of all he said and did. How- 

 ever, for the seven or eight last years of his life he had become 

 more and more retired in his habits, and long before he 

 died the evergTeen had fairly faded out. About the last 

 we ever saw of him in public was when, some summers 

 since, he was wont to sit on a good-looking- bay mare at 

 the top of Rotten-row — still, even in the full flow of that 

 high tide, as much a man of mark as ever. But, eheu I 

 quantum mutaius ah illo Eectore, who, as Captain Cra- 

 ven, of the Royals, curvetted down the line on 

 his stalhon charger — or even how altered, in a few 

 short years from ^^the thorough varmint and the real 

 swell," who ^^ stood Sam" for everybody in the booth, 

 and got up a shindy, as a moral duty he owed to 

 himself ! Let us try and sketch him once again, as he 

 sits under the shade of the Achilles, with scarcely a 

 man of his own day left to greet him. There is the 

 white hat, and the brown brass-buttoned coat still, and, 

 above all, the great gold-enamelled horse and jockey 

 brooches in his shirt — the one a memorial of Longwaist, 

 and the other of the Oaks filly. The kerseys, though, 

 are gone, and in their place are a pair of short, broad, 

 banjo-pattern plaid trowsers, and drab half-gaiters. 

 He is yet a '^ character," and the well-dressed mob still 

 stare and whisper as they pass, '^ That's Fuh^'^r Cra- 

 ven." But it is only the wreck of him. Stay a minute, 

 and remember how all the dare-devil audacious look of 

 that dark eye has died away. Watch the nervous, 

 almost imbecile play about the once full, firm, and de- 

 cisive mouth. See how the hair-colour has run off from 



