121 ' •^, 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LORD DARLINGTON AND MR. THORNHILL. 



** Lately passing o'er Bamsdale, I happened to spy 

 A fox stealing on, with the hounds in full cry : 

 'Tis Darlington, sure, for his voice I well know, 

 Crying ' Forward ! hark forward !' for Skelbrook below. 

 With my Ballymoonoora, 

 The hounds of old Raby for me !" 



ALTHOUGH Lord Darlington's heart was so 

 truly with his ** spotted darlings," as to justify 

 Mr. "Antonio" Ferguson's regular remark to those 

 who visited his pleasant wayside inn, that " his lord- 

 ship never looks like himself after these London visits 

 till he's had a bit of fox-hunting," we shall give no 

 sketch of him in scarlet here. Is it not dashed off to 

 the life in the pages of " The Chase," and engraved 

 in the memory of Bedale sportsmen ? We are about 

 to deal with him, not as he appeared with an em- 

 broidered fox on his collar, and his horn at the saddle- 

 bow, waving his hounds into Gatherley Moor, but as 

 he was known to every lover of the Heath, quietly 

 cantering towards the Ditch stables, with Sam and 

 Will Chifney on either side of him. He was born in 

 the same year as Frank Buckle ; and, although he 

 only died in February, 1842, at the age of seventy- 

 six, he had begun to run horses in 1794. Hence, even 

 in 1827, he seemed to feel so acutely, when he visited 

 Newmarket, that 



*' Well-a-day ! his date was fled : 

 His sporting brethren all were dead f" 



