The late Mr. Nightingale. 379 



hear Boynton calling to them. Sometimes he has a 

 live rabbit to turn down for them when they reach 

 him ; so that they soon learn the line, and keep it. It 

 is half over grass, half over heather, and the two miles 

 are generally covered in about five minutes. 



The kennels were not more than four miles from 

 Skibeden, and there was nothing Mr. Nightingale 

 loved more dearly than to look out of his window and 

 see Boynton coming across the field with his " Ash- 

 down Volunteers." Of Chloe he always said that she 

 was perfection, if her forelegs had not been a trifle too 

 long. Charming May was his delight, and he had her 

 up to his bedside shortly before the Waterloo Cup of 

 last year to pat her, and "give her some good advice." 

 Illness was irksome to a man of his eminently active 

 habits ; but we never heard him murmur. In his 

 prime he was possessed of great muscular power, able 

 to hold any mail-team, and even master of Chapman, 

 when they once met at the Greyhound Inn, Shep, and 

 had a bout at throwing half-a-hundredweight under 

 and above arm. He used to tell how a stalwart bully 

 once put his head into a coffee-room in the South 

 where he was sitting, and insinuated something about 

 his judgment of a course. " It was well," he added, 

 " that he ran down the passage, and locked himself 

 up in a parlour, and apologized through the keyhole, 

 or I know I should have killed him." Skibeden was 

 three miles from Skipton, and the hospitable welcome 

 within made up for the cold look of the house. A 

 neater farmer was not to be found in Yorkshire, or a 

 better judge of bullocks. Everything was in the most 

 rigid order — " not a straw dared to be out of place." 

 When his coursing days were ended, he still took the 

 judge's chair at the Caledonian Hunt Meetings, and 

 on one occasion (so we have heard) decided " by a 

 nose/' On his way back he would generally stop at 

 Mr. Sharpe's, of Hoddom, and talk over Hughie Gra- 

 ham and " the family fawn " with " The Laird " and 



