MY FAMILY 



his tenants. It was about 400 acres. Not a good farm, 

 chiefly arable. My father had one brother, John 

 Drage, who Uved at a farm about one mile from 

 Holcot. He had one son and two daughters. The 

 son, William, was fatally injured by a fall hunting. 

 He was a very fine rider. He never got a bad fall un- 

 til about two years before the fatal one. Then, in 

 those two years, he had a bad fall near Market 

 Harborough and the following year he got very 

 badly hurt in jumping some high rails not far from 

 Cottesbrooke. 



I saw it happen, but when he did not get up I 

 got someone to hold my horse and went to him. 

 I could see he was in a very bad way and I felt it 

 was only a matter of minutes before the end, but 

 as he still held on I got someone to get a conveyance 

 and I got in it with him expecting the end would 

 come before we got him home. But it was not to 

 be so, and we got him to his home. I used to sit 

 up with him through the night for about a fort- 

 night. He was quite unconscious, but one morning 

 before leaving I was talking to the nurse and we 

 saw him just move an eyelid and he gradually, by 

 very slow degrees, recovered. But it left him in a 

 poor way and for a long time he had difficulty in 

 walking, but by degrees he got so that he could ride 

 a quiet old pony and then he started to go out 

 hunting in a quiet way. One day he was tempted 

 to jump a little fence, but there was sheep netting 

 at the back of it and this gave him a terrible fall 



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