CHAPTER LIII

SPORTING MEMORIES

I. RIDING AND DRIVING

I rode my first race in Corfu, as a midshipman. An old colonel of

artillery, who knew my father, said to me:

"You are a Beresford, an Irishman, and a sailor, and if you can't ride,

who can? You shall ride my horse in the next race. He is a hard

puller, and if only you stick on he will win."

He _was_ a hard puller, and he did win. I rode in my midshipman's

uniform, and lost my cap, and won the race. But the horse ran three

times round the course before I could pull him up.

I have always said that you can do anything with horses if you

understand them. It was at a dinner party in my house in Eaton Square

that I offered to put that statement to the proof. The table at which

my guests were sitting was designed with a large tank in the centre,

which was filled with running water, in which grew ferns and aquatic

plants. Gold fish swam in the water, and little new-born ducklings

oared upon the surface. This miniature lake was diversified with

spirals and fountains fashioned of brass which I had turned myself.

Among the company was an old friend, Harry Chaplin, than whom there is

no finer sportsman in England and who was perhaps the best heavy-weight

rider to hounds in England.

I told my guests that I would bring in one of my horses {519} (a

bad-tempered thoroughbred), that I would lead him from the street, up

the steps into the hall, round the dining-table and so back to the

street without accident. Straw was laid on the steps and passages; and

I led in the horse. He lashed out at the fire with one leg, just to

show his contempt for everything and everybody; but there was no

casualty.

The next day, I was driving the same horse in a buggy, when something

annoyed the animal, and he kicked the buggy to pieces, upset us in the

road, and broke my old coachman's leg.

My uncle, Henry Lord Waterford, once made a bet that he would ride one

of his hunters over the dining-room table in his house at Melton, and

won his bet, the horse actually leaping the table towards the fire.

Horses are like Irishmen: they are easily managed if you know how to

handle them.

The famous horse-fair of Cahirmee is no more. But it was at Cahirmee,

according to tradition, that Irishmen acquired their habit of breaking

one another's heads. At Cahirmee Fair, the boys slept in tents, their

heads outwards; and it was the custom of the wilder spirits to go round

the tents at night, and playfully to rap the heads of the sleepers with

shillelaghs. One of the sleepers was most unfortunately killed by a

blow, and his slayer was brought before the magistrate, who condemned

him. Hereupon the policeman who had arrested the prisoner addressed

the magistrate:

"Your Honour," says he, "sure it is very well known that the deceased

had a terrible thin skull upon him, and I would be wanting in my duty

not to be telling your Honour the way the poor man's skull was

dangerous to him."

"'Tis the truth," broke in the prisoner eagerly. "Sure your Honour's

honour will be letting me off, for everyone knows that no man having a

thin skull does be having anny business to be at Cahirmee Fair."

During the paper-chases which we got up at Valparaiso, I met with a

nasty accident. My horse rose at some posts and rails, and crashed

through the top bar; after which I knew {520} no more except a shower

of stars and darkness. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself

being borne home on horseback, lying face down on the Chilian saddle,

which is made of thick rugs. The horse was being led by a Chilian

farmer, who was, I thought, taking me to the mortuary. But he was

really a good Samaritan. He had bathed my wounded face with

_aquadente_, and placed me on his horse. The scent and sting of the

_aquadente_ revived the moribund, and by the evening I was all right

again.

In the _Research_, in 1867, we had a quartette of hunting men, Cæsar

Hawkins, Lascelles, Forbes and myself. We used constantly to hunt

together. Lascelles was one of the best riders I have ever known. He

could take a horse through or over anything. The _Research_ was

stationed at Holyhead at that time, because it was believed that the

Fenians had planned to destroy the steamers running from Holyhead to

Ireland and back. I used to go across to Ireland from the _Research_

to hunt with the Ward Union near the Curragh, and return the same

night. A long way to cover.

"The Three Brothers'" race is still remembered in Ireland It was ridden

by Lord William, Lord Marcus, and myself. Each of us had his backers,

but the crowd was at first firmly convinced that the result of the race

had been arranged between us. I believe I had the best horse, but he

was unfortunately taken with an attack of influenza while he was coming

over from England in the boat. Lord William won by a short head from

Lord Marcus, and I was a length behind. Lord Marcus reminds me that

each of us, while secretly fancying himself intensely, enthusiastically

eulogised the other.

I quote the enthusiastic account of the race written by an eye-witness,

which appeared in _The Waterford News_ at the time. (_The Waterford

News_, 4th January, 1901. Account by Mr. Harry Sargant, from his

_Thoughts upon Sport_, and description in _The Waterford News_, The

Three Brothers' Race, 30th April, 1874.)

{521}

"Lords Charles, William, and Marcus Beresford had a sweepstake of 100

sovs. each, p.p., three miles, over the Williamstown Course, twelve

stone each, owners up. Lord Charles rode Nightwalker, a black

thoroughbred horse, and bred by Billy Power, the sporting tenant of the

course; Lord William rode Woodlark, a grey mare; and Lord Marcus was on

a bay gelding called The Weasel. They each wore the Beresford blue,

Lord Charles with the ancestral black cap, while the others had white

and blue caps as distinguishing emblems.

"No racecourse in Ireland, except Punchestown and Fairyhouse, ever had

more people on it than Williamstown had on that, the most memorable day

in its annals. Old men and women who had never before seen a race came

50 miles to see 'the Brothers' race.'" (Many persons slept on the

ground on the preceding night.) "Not a person, except the too aged and

incapacitated, was in a farmhouse within 10 miles of the course, while

the city was as deserted as if plague-stricken--all, all, flocked to

Williamstown. Excitement rose to boiling pitch as the three brothers

filed out of the enclosure and did the preliminary. I fancy now I see

them jogging side by side to the starting-post, where poor Tom Waters

awaited them, ready with ensign in hand to send them on their journey.

The only delay was while he delivered a short but sporting speech to

these three lads, when away they went, boot to boot. The pace was a

cracker from the start, but none made the running more than another,

for all three were girth to girth most of the journey, and at no time

did two lengths divide the first and last till just before the finish.

Yes, every post they made a winning-post; and ding-dong did they go at

each other, though, of course, riding like sportsmen. Fence after

fence was charged and cleared by them locked together, and it was not

until Nightwalker was beaten, just before the last fence, they

separated. A determined struggle between Woodlark and The Weasel then

ensued; and, after a desperate finish, old Judge Hunter gave the

verdict to the former 'by a short head.'

{522}

"Never was seen a better race of its class, nor was any ever ridden

more determinedly for victory. The scene of excitement on Williamstown

Course before and after it beggars description. Not a mouth was shut

or a voice lower than its highest pitch."

Two Irishmen who came from Australia, used to ride with our hounds, the

Curraghmore, in County Waterford. They were both very hard riders and

both so short-sighted as to be nearly blind. For these reasons they

used closely to follow my brother and myself; and we used to do our

best to get out of their way, as they were always on the top of us, but

in vain. For whenever they saw us sheering off they used to shout out,

"Go on, Lord Charles,"--or Lord William, or Lord Marcus, as the case

might be--"go on, I can't see but I can ride."

My brother Bill and I got a real good start one day with the

Curraghmore hounds. We led the field till we came to the river

Clodagh. The hounds swam the river, and we followed them, with the

water over our horses' girths. In jumping out, Bill got on the hard

bank, but in the place where I went, the water had undermined it. I

was on a little horse called Eden, which was not 15 hands, but which

had won the jumping prize at the Horse Show in Dublin. He was "a great

lepped harse," as the Irish say. He did his best, but the bank gave

under him, and he came right back on me in the water. When I got up,

both my stirrup leathers had slipped, and I saw the irons showing at

the bottom of the river. I had to go down under water to recover them.

I got out and rode to a public-house, the landlord of which was a

tenant of my brother Waterford.

"For the love of God, Lord Char-less, how did ye get that way at all at

all?" says he.

I told him, and,

"Can you give me a suit of clothes, as they will draw Ballydurn in the

afternoon, and I must be there?" said I.

"Divil a suit have I got," says he. "But there, his {523} Riverence is

just afther changing his clothes within, and I'm sure he'll be glad and

proud if you esconced yourself in his clothes, and he big enough to

cover two of yez."

I went upstairs, and there I found his Reverence's clericals on the

bed, and with that I stripped and put on his vest, shirt, trousers and

clerical coat. His great boots were elastic-sided, and I had to put

two copies of the _Cork Examiner_ newspaper in each to make them fit

me. He was a big man, over six feet high and weighing about twenty

stone; and his trousers were so long that when I turned them up

half-way to the knee, they still could go into the top of the boots, in

which I stowed them, tying string round the boots to keep the trousers

in. The trousers were so wide round the waist, that I had to button

the top button round on the opposite side brace button behind. The

coat was so long that it reached down half-way between my knees and

ankles.

Thus ecclesiastically garbed, I rode to the cover, and waited under a

bank for nearly an hour, hoping to hear the hounds. My teeth were

chattering with cold, and all I had on of my own was my hat. At last I

heard the horn, and at once a fine old fox broke. I waited till he got

afield and then knocked a bawl out of myself that would terrify a

neighbourhood. Out came the hounds and me on top of them, with two

fields' start, as I was wrong side of the cover down wind concealed

under a big bank. Then came over twenty minutes as hard as legs could

lay on to ground, and all the field wondering who his Reverence could

be that was leading the field, and where in God's name did he come

from--all except Bill. He knew that I had fallen in the river, he knew

Eden, and he laughed so that he could hardly sit his horse. When the

field came up, fox to ground, they nearly fell off their horses with

laughing. One farmer said to me:

"Begob, your Riverence, you will never be so near heaven again as on

the top of that terror of a high bank ye lepped!"

{524}

There was a lady, a very hard and jealous rider, who often hunted with

our hounds, and who was told one day that she must hold her own with

the Curraghmores, as some ladies from the neighbouring packs were out.

"Show me a Tipperary or a Kilkenny woman till I lep on the shmall of

her back," quoth she.

Every sportsman knows the delight of getting a good start and of

keeping it. I was riding with the Tipperaries, when Eden jumped a

tremendous big mearing (boundary); the others who faced it either fell

or refused; and thus we got three fields ahead of the rest of the

field, and ran the fox straight to ground in thirty-five minutes, Eden

keeping right on the tail of the hounds the whole way. Two or three

times I have got such a start and kept it, another occasion being in

Leicestershire, when I was riding a horse belonging to my sister-in-law.

Once with the Meath I got a long start by seeing which way the wind

was; and cutting a corner, I observed a man with a green collar doing

the same, and we both kept our lead. A fortnight later, stag-hunting

upon Exmoor, I got well away, when I saw a man ahead of me on my left.

At the end of the run, I observed that he had a green collar, and found

it was the same man. A curious coincidence.

Riding another of my Irish horses, Sea Queen, we were going down a

by-road, the hounds being on the right, when we came to an iron gate,

nearly 6 feet high. I was bending down to pull back the bolt, when the

mare suddenly jumped. She got her fore-part over, and it took me half

an hour to clear her. I was obliged to break the gudgeon of the gate.

Hunting at home at Curraghmore, I used to tell my brothers, all of whom

were cavalry officers, that I would engage to pick a hundred seamen

from the Fleet, who had never been on a horse, and to make them in six

weeks as fine a troop of cavalry as any in the kingdom. Naturally they

did not believe me, and chaffed the life out of me. But when my

brother Lord William went to South Africa, {525} to the Zulu war of

1879, he commanded three troops of irregular cavalry, the men of which

had been recruited straight from the merchant service. His troop

sergeant-major had been a mate. When my brother returned, he

acknowledged that my boast was justified. The fact was that in the old

sailing days, the sailor was so agile, athletic and resourceful a

creature, so clever with his hands, and so accustomed to keeping his

balance in every situation, that he could speedily acquire the seat and

the skill which other men must as a rule learn in childhood or not at

all. Anyhow, the seamen could stick on.

Many men never become easy on horseback. My experience in the hunting

field taught me that a man who is always fussily shouting, "Where the

devil are the hounds, sir?" and so forth, is always nervous. I have

sometimes answered, "Keep calm, sir, keep calm. It's not a general

action."

For a short time I was acting-Master of the Buckhounds, in place of my

brother Waterford, when he was laid up with an accident in the hunting

field, from which, poor fellow, he never recovered. As he was

galloping through an open swinging gate, the gate closed on his horse

as the horse was level with it. The jerk injured the base of the spine.

One day with the Buckhounds we were hunting a very twisting, slow stag,

when, observing a charming country-woman of mine, I asked her if she

had another horse out. As she said she had not, I advised her to go to

a certain spot, where the deer-cart held another stag, wait there for

me, and we would have a good run, and with luck we could get back to

the station and catch a train. Sure enough, we had a splendid run,

half an hour as hard as we could go; the stag ran into the lost

property office in Slough railway station, and a train bound for London

came in at the same moment: a prophecy fulfilled.

I was one of the original number that first played polo at Lillie

Bridge, in the early days of polo in England. We played on little

13-hand ponies, with a bamboo root rounded {526} off as a ball. I do

not think that there are many of the original number now (1913) alive;

but among them is Lord Valentia, who very kindly sent me the following

account of the introduction of polo into England:

"The first polo match ever played in Europe was between the 9th Lancers

and 10th Hussars at Hounslow, July, 1871, but the 10th had played polo

for years then. The first game ever played was at Aldershot, on Cove

Common, in 1870; where Colonel Liddell says in his _Memoirs of the 10th

Royal Hussars_: 'The game was introduced into England by the officers

of the 10th, from a description of the game as played by the Manipuri

tribe in India which appeared in _The Field_ newspaper. Lord Valentia,

Mr. Hartopp, and Mr. George Cheape of the 11th attached to the 10th,

were the originators.' I believe the Lillie Bridge Club was formed in

1872. I well remember a day at Lillie Bridge when I think you, Bill,

and Marcus were playing, and your mother was looking on. Bill Was

knocked out by a crack on the head, and carried into the dressing room,

where he lay unconscious for a short time. Your mother was in the room

with him, and heard Tom Fitzwilliam in the next room shouting out so

that everyone in both rooms could hear, 'Oh, it's only Bill knocked

out. No matter, you can't kill a Beresford!'"

I had entered to ride my horse Nightwalker in the steeple-chase at

Totnes, which is the most difficult course in England, up hill and down

dale, and along a narrow path beside and across the river. Just before

the race, I was warned that a plan had been formed for the jockeys to

ride me out at a post on the river at the bottom of the hill. Had I

been ridden out, I could never have recovered the ground. I kept a

vigilant look-out accordingly. Riding along the tow-path, a jockey

began to hustle me. I told him to pull back, warning him that unless

he kept clear I would have him in the river. He returned no answer,

but continued to hustle me: whereupon I pulled my horse on to him,

cannoned into him, and over he went, horse and all, {527} into the

water. Falling on a rock, he broke his thigh. I won the race. Then I

went to look after the injured jockey. Nightwalker was one of the best

horses I ever owned. I sold him to Lord Zetland, who told me that "the

horse was one of the best he had ever had, and no price would buy him."

In 1882, while I was in command of the _Condor_, a gymkhana was

arranged which had the unfortunate and wholly unforeseen result of

bringing me into serious disfavour with an agitated husband. We rode

upon side-saddles, dressed in ladies' attire: habits, chignons, and

tall hats complete. I had a capital pony, and had won the race, my

chignon and hat blowing off on the way, when up comes an indignant

gentleman, to accuse me of insulting his wife. I had, he said, dressed

up to imitate the lady, on purpose to bring ridicule upon her.

Naturally, I assured him that he was mistaken, and that nothing would

have induced me to commit so discourteous an action. But my gentlemen

waxed hotter than before, and violently demanded an apology. He

declined to accept my assurance; his language was highly irritating;

and I became angry in my turn.

"You don't appear to understand the situation," I told him. "How dare

you come to me and tell me that I looked like your wife? Either you

apologise to me at once for that most improper suggestion, or..."

He saw reason. He apologised. The biter was bit.

While I was commanding the _Condor_ in 1882, a famous Italian

long-distance runner came to Malta, and issued a challenge, of which

the conditions were that he would run on foot any mounted man over a

twenty-mile course, himself to go any pace he chose, but the horse to

trot, canter, or gallop, not to stop or to walk. I accepted the

challenge, and went into hard training.

I trained on ponies, confiding the pony which I was to ride in the race

to a midshipman of light weight, and reduced my weight to 10 st. 8 lb.

The greater proportion of the {528} Maltese, whose dislike of the

English was still strong in those days, were in favour of the Italian.

They assembled in vast crowds on the Marsa upon the day of the race.

We ran and rode round and round the great open space--afterwards the

parade-ground--and although my adversary tried every trick of his

trade, such as suddenly stopping, or lying down, I succeeded in winning

the race.

I had a famous horse called Sudden Death, which I bought from Lord

Norris; and the first time I drove him tandem in the lead was on

Portsmouth Hard, where he cut across the first cab on the cab rank,

whereupon all the cabs backed out on the top of one another with

kickings, cursings and squealings. I sold Sudden Death for £15, a case

of infamous sherry, and a life insurance ticket.

The greatest devil of a horse I ever owned I called The Fiend. He

would carry me brilliantly for a day or two, and then, for no earthly

reason, he would turn it up in a run, kick, back, rear and bite at my

foot; and if he could not get me off, he would rub my leg against a

wall or rush at a gate. Once, after carrying me beautifully in two

runs on one day, he flew into one of his tantrums. We were crossing

the bridge over the Clodagh River at Curraghmore, and he actually

jumped upon the parapet of the bridge, balanced himself upon it for a

moment, and then (thank God!) jumped into the road again.

We had a pad groom in the Curraghmore stables, Paddy Quin, called The

Whisperer, because he could control any dangerous horse by whispering

to him. I told Quin to sell The Fiend without bringing my name into

the transaction. He sold the horse accordingly; and when the business

was completed, he told me that he had represented to the purchaser that

The Fiend "belonged to a lone widdy living by the say-side."

I believe that I am the only man who has ever ridden a pig down Park

Lane. As I was returning home from a dance in the calm of a summer

morning, accompanied by a friend, a herd of swine came by, and among

them a {529} huge animal trotted pre-eminent. I wagered £5 that I

would ride that great pig into Piccadilly; dashed into the herd, took a

flying leap upon the pig's back, and galloped all down Park Lane,

pursued with shouts by the swineherd. As I turned into Piccadilly, the

swineherd caught me a clout on the head, knocking me off my steed. But

not before I won my wager.

I was once prettily sold by a sportsman named Doddy Johnson. We were

of a party at Maidenhead, and we laid £5 on the winner of a swimming

race across the Thames, both to swim in our frock coats and tall hats.

My antagonist and I were to start from a line on the lawn at Skindle's,

and the first to get ashore on the opposite bank was to be the winner.

I raced down the lawn and plunged in. About half-way across the river,

I looked back, and there was Doddy standing on the bank. He had his

jest; presumably it was worth a fiver.

One year, three out of four horses in my coach being hunters, I was

obliged to start with the leaders, for if I started in the proper way

with the wheelers, the off wheeler invariably jumped into her collar

and kicked. Being taken to task in the Park one day by a famous

four-in-hand driver, who told me I did not know how to start a team, I

said to him that as he was an authority on the subject, I should be

very grateful if he would be so good as to start my coach for me, and

thus to show me how it ought to be done; adding that if the coach were

damaged or the horses were injured, he must hold himself responsible.

Gladly accepting these conditions, my friend mounted to the box and

settled himself with great nicety and pulled off the leaders. Then he

touched the off wheeler with his whip. The next moment she had kicked

in the boot, and the leaders started kicking, and both fell--a regular

tie-up. The mare capped her hocks and was laid up at a vet's for a

week.

I was driving a coach up from Sandown Races along a crowded road, when

a most unfortunate accident suddenly exposed me to the fury of the

populace. Swinging the whip {530} out in order to catch it up

properly, the thong caught under a lady's chignon, and the whip was

nearly pulled out of my hand. Chignon and hat came away together and

remained dangling. The poor lady must have been sadly hurt.

Instantly, of course, I tried to pull up in order to apologise, when

the mob rushed to the very unjust conclusion that I had insulted the

lady on purpose; there was a deal of shouting, and stones began to fly;

the horses were hit and bolted, so that I never had the opportunity of

making my apology. The Duke of Portland, Lord Londonderry and Lord

Inniskillen were on the coach. We used each of us to horse one coach

in stages for the race meetings near London.

Upon another occasion, when I was driving the Prince of Wales on my

coach to a meet of the Four-in-Hand Club at the Magazine, Hyde Park, a

man who was quite unknown to me shouted,

"'Ullo, Chawley, 'ow are yer? I see you've got 'Wiles' up alongside

yer."

"Some of your friends seem very familiar," said the Prince, who took

the remark with perfect good-humour.

I once laid a wager that I would drive round Rotten row, an exercise

forbidden by the regulations. A party assembled to watch the event;

and while they were looking out for me, a man driving the Park

water-cart came by and turned the water on them. Then the company,

looking closer at the driver, perceived that I had won my bet.

The first racehorse owned by the Prince of Wales was a horse named

Stonehenge, which I bought for him. We were partners in the horse.

Stonehenge had won one or two races, when I went away on leave for a

few days. On my return I found that my groom, against orders, had been

galloping him, and that one of his legs had filled. Having heard that

my uncle, Lord Waterford, once trained a horse which filled his leg, by

swimming him in the sea after a boat tried the experiment with

Stonehenge. The admiral's coxswain, two hands, and myself swam

Stonehenge every {531} day about Plymouth Harbour. The horse got fit

to run for his life, and I rode him in a hurdle race at Plymouth. He

was winning easily, but, alas! he broke down at the last hurdle, and

was just beaten.

In 1883-4, the Duke of Portland and myself, as partners, bought Rosy

Morn, as a yearling. He won several races as a two-year-old, and we

fancied him for the Derby. He was a better colt as a two-year-old than

Lord Hastings' Melton, which won the Derby. Both horses were trained

in the same stable, at Matt Dawson's, Heath House, Newmarket.

Matt Dawson declared that we had got a Derby horse. I was getting the

boats through the Bab-el-Kebir in the Egyptian war, when I heard that

Rosy Morn had gone a roarer; and I thought it a bad omen for the

expedition.

Lord Marcus and I organised a donkey race to enliven a South Coast

race-meeting. We hired two donkeys apiece, and each bestrode two

steeds, standing on their backs, and rode them over the wooden groynes

that descend the beach at regular intervals.

The curse of race-meetings is the crowd of dubious characters which

infests them. Lord Marcus, travelling by rail to Newmarket, defeated

three of such persons single-handed.

A trio of three-card-trick men tried to bully him into venturing on the

game; whereupon he set about them. Two he knocked out, and the third

piped down. They left that carriage of carnage at the next station,

protesting amid blood and tears that it was occupied by the most

furious devil allowed on earth. He was maligned: there never was a

kinder-hearted man.

Lord Marcus, who is singularly ready with his tongue, upon being asked

whether he thought False Tooth a good name for a horse, said:

"The best, because you can't stop him."

The same relative committed a worse crime at the Club, where a very

deaf member appealed to him to be told what another member was saying

to him.

{532}

"He's wishing you a Happy New 'Ear--and God knows you want one!"

shouted Markie.

One of the most unexpected events in which I ever took part occurred at

Scarborough, where I was staying for the races with Mr. Robert Vyner.

In the same hotel were staying two well-known members of the racing

world, Mr. Dudley Milner and Mr. Johnny Shafto. Vyner and I happened

to enter the large and long room, used for assemblies; when we

perceived Dudley Milner and Johnny Shafto standing at the other end,

and observed that they were arguing together, somewhat heatedly, in

broad Yorkshire. They were disputing, as racing men do at such times,

about weights in an impending handicap.

There was nothing at all in the great room, so far as I remember,

except a sideboard and a dish filled with pats of butter which stood on

the sideboard. I picked up a pat of butter on the end of the ash-plant

I was carrying, and told Vyner that if he would come outside, I would

throw the pat of butter to a surprising distance.

"Why go outside?" said he. "Why not take a shot at those two fellows

who are arguing so busily over there?"

"And so I will," said I.

The pat of butter described a beautiful yellow parabola at high speed

and lighted upon the eye of one of the disputants. The impact doubled

him up, and he thought that the other man had hit him. Drawing his

right fist back very slowly and carefully, he struck his friend full on

the point of the nose. The next moment they were both rolling on the

floor, fighting like cats. My companion and I were laughing so much

that we couldn't separate them; and they finally had to go to bed for a

week to recover themselves of their wounds.

Butter produces various effects, according to its application. I was

one of the guests among a large party at a luncheon, given by an old

gentleman who had a fancy for breeding pugs, which were then the

fashionable breed of dog. On the table opposite to me was a glass bowl

{533} containing a quantity of pats of butter; and as each of the many

pugs in the room came to me, I gave him a pat of butter on the end of a

fork. He gently snuggled it down. After about ten minutes first one

pug and then another began to be audibly unwell. The old gentleman was

so terrified at these alarming symptoms, that he incontinently

dispatched a carriage at speed to fetch the nearest vet That expert,

after a careful diagnosis, reported that "someone must have been

feeding the pugs on butter."

My brother Marcus, travelling by rail with some friends, Mr. Dudley

Milner being of the party, Markie very kindly relieved the tedium of

the journey. Dudley Milner had fallen asleep. Marcus took the ticket

from Milner's pocket. He then woke up Milner, telling him that the

tickets were about to be collected. Milner, after feverishly searching

for his ticket, was forced to the conclusion that he had lost it, and,

finding that he had very little money, begged that someone would lend

him the requisite sum. One and all, with profuse apologies, declared

themselves to be almost penniless; and Milner was nearing despair, when

my brother sympathetically suggested that, as the train approached the

station Milner should hide under the seat, and all would be well.

Thereupon Milner, assisted by several pairs of feet, struggled under

the seat, and his friends screened him with their legs.

The collector appeared, and Marcus gave him all the tickets.

"Here's six tickets for five gentlemen," said the collector.

"Quite correct," said Marcus. "The other gentleman is under the seat.

He prefers travelling like that."

An old friend of mine, Lord Suffield, has recently published his

memoirs. He was an indomitable rider, with a beautiful seat, and one

of the hardest men to hounds in his day. I well remember riding home

with him across country after the hunt with His Majesty's Buckhounds,

when, taking a turn to the right, while I took a turn to the left, he

suddenly disappeared altogether from view. As {534} suddenly he

appeared again on his horse's neck. He speedily got back into the

saddle and went away as if nothing had happened, looking neither to the

right nor left. I turned to find out the cause of his disappearance,

and found that he had come across a deep V-shaped ditch, at the bottom

of which was a very high post and rails. How any man or horse could

have got over it, it is impossible to say. When I spoke to him about

his exploit in the evening, he treated it as a matter of course, and

only said it was "a rather nasty place."

When we were in India together, in the suite of the Prince of Wales, he

always preferred riding to going on an elephant. He was a great

yachtsman in his day, and knew as much about handling yachts as any

seaman I have ever met. He was a very good shot, and one of the

greatest friends I have ever had.

{535}