PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 



place between them. When Lord Wilton met the Duke at 

 the commencement of a season he would almost invariably 

 say to him, " Good-morning, Granby ; I see you stick to the 

 same length of bowsprit." On asking the Duke who he 

 considered to have the best cigars of the numerous cigar 

 merchants he employed, his answer was, " On the whole I 

 have always found Thompson's cigars to suit me the best." 



I will now mention some of the Duke of Rutland's sensa- 

 tional performances in the hunting field. During his younger 

 days he jumped the Croxton Park wall on the south side of 

 the Park, not far from the race-stand, the wall being over 

 five feet high, with a considerable drop. He also jumped 

 the river Witham between Great Ponton and Grantham at 

 a very wide place, and Lord Forester, seeing him do it, 

 shouted to his brother, Henry Forester, " Now then, lad, why 

 don't you follow him ? " The Duke also swam the Notting- 

 ham and Grantham canal on horseback, and had great diffi- 

 culty in getting his horse out, the banks being boggy and 

 rotten ; and once while hunting in Lincolnshire he had the 

 misfortune to jump a fence near a pond on a hard-pulling 

 horse, which, before he could stop him, rushed madly into 

 the pond ; both horse and rider were nearly drowned, and 

 were extricated with much difficulty, covered with black 

 mud. One of the reasons of the Duke's great popularity 

 as a master of hounds was that he never swore at his field 

 or used any bad language to them, but if he called them 

 to order he did so in a determined manner, and on some 

 occasions, when he was not listened to, he threatened to take 

 the hounds home, which always had the desired effect. The 

 Duke had a very smart second horseman in William Skil- 

 lington, afterwards promoted to be stud groom at Belvoir, 

 and he would send him galloping off after any offending 

 gentleman with orders to stop him or bring him back. 



Among the numerous anecdotes which the Duke was fond 

 of relating to his friends was one of his being taken in by 

 a clever horsedealer and farmer, Mr. Tomlin by name, well 

 known in the hunting field by the name of Cap Tomlin, 

 because he always wore a huntsman's cap. At the time of 



225 Q 



