INTRODUCTION 



Whyte-Melville's end came in the way which, 

 had the choice rested with him, he probably 

 would have preferred. He had rented a small 

 house at Tetbury in Gloucestershire, which a 

 friend once criticised as being too near the 

 churchyard. 



" Perhaps it is," replied Whyte-Melville, " for 

 some tastes ; but the closer the better for a hunt- 

 ing man : they will not have so far to carry him." 



Careless, almost flippant words, but of un- 

 foreseen significance. Not long afterwards, on 

 the 5th of December 1878, the speaker was out 

 with the Vale of White Horse hounds. They 

 had found a fox, but were still in cover ; Whyte- 

 Melville, stealing forward for a start, was 

 galloping along the grass headland of a ploughed 

 field on a favourite hunter, the Shah. No one 

 saw what happened ; the good horse must have 

 crossed his legs and fallen on his rider, who was 

 found stone dead. They took him to his little 

 house in Tetbury, whence, to repeat his own 

 words, they had "not so far to carry him," when 

 they laid him in the churchyard hard by. 



There was one hio^h-minded grentleman the less 

 in this world — one generous soul the more among 

 the shades. 



HERBERT MAXWELL. 



MONREITH, 1898. 



XVlll 



