MEMOIR OF THE
^EV. JOHN RUSSELL

LLUSTRATED BY

N.H.J.BAIRD

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JOHNA.SEAVERNS

TUFTS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

3 9090 013 421 512

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Webster Family Library of Veterinary i^yiedicine
Cummings Schooi of Veterinary Medicine at
Tufts University
200 Westboro Road
North Grafton, MA 01 536

This edition, pyinted for sale in England and
Atnerica and illustrated by Mr. N. H. J.
Baird, is strictly limited to one tho2isand
copies.

I

THE OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE

OF THE

REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

When Autumn is flaunting his banner of pride

For glorj' that Summer has fled,
Arrayed in the robes of his royalty dyed

In tawny and orange and red ;
When the oak is yet rife with the vigour of life,

Though his acorns are dropping below,
Through bramble and brake shall the echoes awake.

To the ring of a clear Talh-Ho !

Whyte-Melville.

xjr /,.■•;"'»*?

ni-

-I

/

The Rev. John Russell.

MEMOIR

OF THE

KEY. JOM RVSSEIi

^ AND HIS ^

OVT-OF-DOOR LIFE

BY

E.WXDAYIESJVLA.

AVTHOR OF *DARIM00KMf5"

A NEW EDITION

WITH I LUVSTR ATIONS Kf

N. H.J. B AI RD

COLOVRED BY HAND.

CHATTO &WINDVS
LONDON.

JAMES G.CPMMIN
EXETER.

vc/T/i:?

First Edition i8y8.

New Edition i88j.

Reprinted

with illustrations by N. H. J. Baird

igo2.

PREFACE.

The Reader will be glad to know, as the Author is
to state, that before a line of the first edition of
this Memoir was published, the proof-sheets of
every chapter were duly submitted to J\Ir. Russell
himself, in order that any statement, affecting
directly or indirectly the authenticity of his personal
history, might be corrected, refuted, or substantiated
by his own hand.

That advantage is lacking only in the final
chapter ; which is added to wind up the history of
his last years, and at the same time to record — as
the Author does with unspeakable regret — the
closing scene of his prolonged and active life.

To the present edition is added a series of
illustrations by Mr. Baird depicting scenes and
incidents in the life of Mr. Russell.

V

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

John Russell's Education under his Father — Is sent to
Plympton School — ^His First Fight with J. C.
Bulteel — Is removed to Tiverton School — Keeps
Hounds there, and gets into Trouble with Dr.
Richards, the Head Master — Is admitted into
Exeter College, Oxford, in 1814

CHAPTER II.

Buys his First Horse at Tiverton Fair, and sees his
First Stag killed with Lord Fortescue's Hounds —
Learns to spar at Oxford, and sets-to with Denne
and others — Wrestling Matches in Devon and
Cornwall his great delight . . . .19

CHAPTER III.

A Day with the Heythrop and Sir Thomas Mostyn's
Packs — Russell's Terriers — Anecdotes of Tip and
Nelson — The Process of manufacturing so-called
" Fox-Terriers " for the Market . . -39

X. Contents.

CHAPTER IV.

PAGE

Is Ordained and Licensed to his First Curacy — Keeps
Otter-Hounds at South-Molton, and hunts with
Froude — Anecdotes of that g-entleman and Dr.
Phillpotts, the late Bishop of Exeter . . -63

CHAPTER V.

The Teignbridge Cricket Club and the party at Stover
— Mr George Templer and the " Let-'em-alones "
— The " Bold Dragoon " — The Rev. Henry Taylor
and his Horse " Nunky " . . . .88

CHAPTER VI.

He falls in Love — Rides by Night to Bath — His
Grotesque Mount in Milsom Street — Is Married,
and removes to Iddesleigh — Keeps Foxhounds,
and Forms an Alliance with Mr. C. A. Harris —
Difficulties with Fox-killers .... 105

CHAPTER VII.

The Artificial Fox-earth — Accession of Country — The
Bodmin Meetings — Long Distances to Cover — Sir
Tatton Sykes — The Ivybridge Hunt Week — Rides
Home . . . . . . -133

CHAPTER VIII.

Has no Regular Whip — HisThree Horses — Termination
of the Alliance and Contraction of his Country —
Mr. J. Morth Woolcombe — The Pencarrow Run —
Mrs. Smith, of Porlock — The Four Vixen Cubs . 161

Contents. xi.

CHAPTER IX.

PAGE

Removes to Swymbridge — His Kindness to the Gipsies
—St. Hubert's Hall— The Vine Draft— The Chulm-
leigh Club — The Bishop of Exeter and the Charg-es
against Russell — Bishop revokes the Curate's
License — Mr. Trelavvny on the Chulmleigh Meetings 189

CHAPTER X.

His Power in distinguishing Hounds after once hearing
their Names — Parts with his Pack — Starts again —
Kennel Management — Firing, etc. — Four Days'
Work — Mr. Houlditch as Whip — Kindness to a
Curate — A Scene between them at Lanacre Bridge
on the Moor . . . . . ,212

CHAPTER XI.

The South Molton Club — Stopping out the Foxes —
" Beatrice and Barbara " —Russell and Radcliffe's
Stories— The "Little Specklety Hen "—Russell's
Ducking in the Barle — Mallard and Cat snapped
up by Foxes in Chase ..... 237

CHAPTER XII.

The South Molton Meetings — Limpetty, Mr. Trelawny's
Huntsman, rides over a Flood-Hatch on "Jack
Sheppard " — Russell ceases to be a Master of
Hounds — His Long- Devotion to the " Antient
Sport of Kings "—A Brief Sketch of the Stag-
hounds — A Barrister and his Gallant Grey brought
to Grief in an Exmoor Bog — Anecdote of Hind and
Calf. 263

xii. Contents.

CHAPTER XIII.

PAGE

Russell and his Friend, the Rev. A. F. Luttrell, of
Quantockshead — Danger of Handling a Stag at Bay
— Man and Hound injured, and both saved by
Russell — Ladies to the Front over Exmoor — Mrs.
Cholmondeley's Perilous Fall . . . .291

CHAPTER XIV.

Visits Marham Hall and Sandringham — Dances the
Old Year out and the New Year in with the
Princess of Wales — Manly Traits in the Young
Princes — Sorrow at Home — His Clerical Life —
Tiverton Old Boys' Meetings. . . • 310

CHAPTER XV.

Russell Removes to Black Torrington — A Disastrous
Fire in his New Stables — Hunts with the Quorn,
the Cottesmore, the Belvoir, and the Beaufort
Hounds — Visits Col. J. Anstruther Thomson, and
goes with him and Mr. J. Whyte-Melville to Ascot
— Hunts with the Staghounds, and again Visits
Sandringham — His Last Illness — Death and Funeral 337

ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. The Rev. John Russell

2. Russell's first run with the Staghotmds
J. A Set-to with Denne

4. Otterhunting

5. Russell at Bath in 1826

6. Russell finds a hare, first

y. The Finish of the Pencarrow Run

8. Russell becomes surety for the Gipsy

g, Russell catches a Fawn ...

TO. Mrs. Russell leads the Field

11. Difficulties of an Exmoor Bog

12. Tordown

frojitispiece.

19

33

73
III

131
183

221

243

281

337

MEMOIR OF

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

CHAPTER I.

John Russell's Education under his Father — Is sent
A to Plympton School — His First Fight with J. C.

' BULTEEL Is removed TO TlVERTON SCHOOL KeEPS

Hounds there, and gets into trouble with Dr.
Richards, the Head Master — Is admitted into
Exeter College, Oxford, in 1814.

Boys, to the hunting field ! though 'tis November,

The wind's in the south ; but a word ere we start —

Though keenly excited, I bid you remember
That hunting's a science, and riding an art.

Egerton-Warburton.

The subject of the present memoir, the Rev.
John Russell, was born on the 21st of Decem-
ber, 1795. His father was the well-known
rector of Iddesleigh, in the north of Devon,
but resided, when John was born, and for a
short time afterwards, at Dartmouth, where he
took pupils, and at the same time kept hounds.
It is recorded of him that not only was he care-
ful to instruct the former in the rudiments of
Greek and Latin, but in those of the "noble
science;" the full enjoyment of the one being

B

2 MEMOIR OF

made subservient to the due acquirement of the
other.

"Work and play" was the good man's
motto ; and to carry out this principle he
adopted the novel plan of keeping a pony-
hunter expressly for the benefit of the boys ;
and he who managed to gain the highest marks
for his work during the week was rewarded
with sole possession of the pony on the follow-
ing hunting-day.

As might be expected, no stimulant could
have been more effective : the boys worked like
Trojans at their school tasks.

During this eventful era, however, the child
"Jack" was in petticoats; and before he became
old enough to compete for a mount, his father
removed to Southhill Rectory, near Callington.
But, inheriting as he did a double portion of
that sire's hunting blood, had the chance been
given him, it may well be imagined how he
would have stepped lirst and foremost into the
academic ring, and how he would have striven,
early and late, to secure so glorious a reward.
His "Propria quae maribus," we may be sure,
would have been perfect ; his knowledge of the
Concords and Syntax equally faultless ; nor,
the victory gained, would he have failed to
acknowledge that the day's sport, thus earned,
had been doubly sweetened by the very labour
he had taken to obtain it.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 3

A Cornish gentleman, whose father had
been educated by the elder Russell, writes thus
to the author of these memoirs: "My father
has long been dead : he sleeps in the Consul's
garden at Tangier ; but I can well remember
the delight with which he was wont to talk of
his school days at Dartmouth, and the admira-
tion he felt for his dear old master. Of him he
would sav : 'He was one of the best classics,
one of the best preachers and readers, and by
far the boldest hunter in the county of Devon.
Not unfrequently, too,' my father would add,
'have I seen the fine old fellow's top-boots
peeping out from under his cassock.' "

His son became a fair classical scholar, no-
thing more ; but, otherwise, to no one in the
West of England would this description apply
with more fidelity than to John Russell ; whose
fine sonorous voice, distinct enunciation, and
earnest exhortations have long established his
repute, both in desk and pulpit, as an ex-
pounder of truth second to none. A story is
told that, on the occasion of his preaching a
sermon, either at the re-opening of a church
newly restored, or on behalf of the North
Devon Hospital (to which, in this way, he has
ever been a readv and bountiful contributor,)
the late Bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts,
travelled a long distance on purpose to hear
him. The stout-hearted prelate, himself a

4 MEMOIR OF

master of eloquence, was so taken with the
matter of the discourse and the style of its
delivery, that he pointedly expressed his com-
mendation of both to those assembled around
him at the luncheon-table.

"Yes, my lord," said a lady sitting next to
him, who happened to be nearly connected
with the preacher, and very well known as a
prominent rider in the hunting-field, "yes, Mr.
Russell is very good in the wood ; but I should
like your lordship to see him in the pigskin."

But, having anticipated the period of his
middle-life by this anecdote, it will be necessary
now to revert to the boy's school days, and
follow him through the bright but not un-
clouded portion of that somewhat eventful time.

An old-established grammar school was that
of Plympton, the go-cart of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
to which he was hrst sent. There, it would
appear, the head master maintained the block-
system in full force ; not, however, for the
purpose of checking, but rather of expediting
the educational progress of his pupils ; for,
when a boy's head appeared to be too hard
to comprehend and remember some crabbed
line of Phcedrus' Fables or Caesar's Commen-
taries, it was duly whacked into him at another
more sensitive point.

Such, however, was the training at that
time, which scholars like Dean Gaisford, Bishop

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 5

Copleston, and the late Mr. Justice Coleridge
were probably compelled to submit to, notwith-
standing the grand brains with wiiich Nature
had blessed those distinguished men.

Here it was he first met his fellow-pupil,
John Crocker Bulteel, "the heir-apparent of
Flete," afterwards so well known in the county,
not only as a popular master of hounds, but as
one of the most genial and talented of men.
The old borough of Plvmpton — the stronghold
of the Treby family, till the brush of the Reform
Bill swept away its charter — was proud enough
of its then flourishing grammar school ; but
prouder still was John Bulteel of being "cock
of the walk" over the many juveniles who
flocked from all quarters to that establishment.

On more than one occasion he had ex-
hibited a disposition to crow over Russell, but
he was very soon taught a lesson that few boys
would be likely to forget so long as they lived.
Bulteel, at length, brought matters to a crisis
by saying something to Russell's disparagement,
in his absence, which, of course, was speedily
conveyed to him in an exaggerated form by
one of his schoolfellows. The oftender, how-
ever, was not to be found at the moment, so
Russell, seeing a book with "J. C. B." in-
scribed on it, pounced upon it at once, and
in his wrath tore it to shreds ; this he did
under the full conviction that Bulteel, on

6 MEMOIR OF

discovering the outrage, would lose no time
in resenting it.

"Who tore this book?" demanded Bulteel,
coming in soon after, and viewing the pages of
his new Gradus scattered on the school floor,
like autumn leaves that strew "the brooks in
Vallombrosa."

"I did!" responded Russell, defiantly, as he
doubled his fists and prepared for the imminent
encounter.

"Then take that," said Bulteel, acting on
the principle that "the first blow is half the
battle," and hitting him like a flash of lightning
on the most prominent feature of Russell's
face.

A sharp and severe encounter then followed.
Russell, however, at length prevailed, winning,
as he would call it, his first spurs, and at the
same time securing ever after the unqualified
respect of his antagonist as a foeman worthy
of his steel.

Soon after he had attained his fourteenth
year, John Russell was removed to Tiverton
School, then under the able mastership of Dr.
Richards, a disciplinarian strict as Draco, who,
by the success of his tuition and the obedience
he enforced, elevated the standard of his school
to a rank equal to that of Reading or Sherborne
in their best days. Nor were the worthies of
Devon slack in availing themselves of these

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 7

and other educational advantages offered by
Blundell's school ; for, when Russell joined, it
was swarming with pupils, several of whom
represented, more or less directly, a goodly
portion of the county families.

He had been but a short time at this
Spartan seminary when, daily provoked by the
tyranny of a boy called Hunter, a monitor in
the first class, and a notorious bully, Russell
avowed himself a champion of the oppressed,
and, for his own sake and that of others, deter-
mined to fight him on the first opportunity.
Now, if a junior boy presumed to challenge a
monitor, it was regarded as a serious and
punishable offence ; but if he struck him, so
dire an act of insubordination was promptly
visited by expulsion.

To bide his time, therefore, was Russell's
only safe policy ; but the trial of doing so
tested his utmost patience ; for the longer he
managed to submit to Hunter's bullying, the
more oppressive and galling it became. The
long-deferred chance, however, came at last.
Dr. Richards having discovered that several of
the boys kept rabbits, gave a peremptory order
that they were to be got rid of forthwith.
Accordingly, on being dismissed from dinner
the owners all, with one exception, posted off
to dispose of their rabbits ; that exception be-
ing Hunter, who, possessing a choice breed,

8 MEMOIR OF

delayed to execute the order, with the intention
of asking permission to send them home, on
the ground that his rabbits were so vahiable.

Russell, in the meantime, observing the
monitor's neglect of duty, and ignorant of the
cause of it, resolved to see the edict fulfilled to
its bitter end, and proceeded at once to do for
Hunter what he seemed so loth to do for
himself. Russell kept ferrets, and, like most
boys of a manly nature, held those who kept
rabbits in supreme contempt, denouncing them
as milksops, only fit to live and associate with
maiden aunts. So it can well be imagined how
the spirit of retaliation took instant possession
of him, and with what zest he conveyed the
rabbits to his ferret-box. As well might the
innocent victims have been tossed into a
python's den, for they were all dead before
the owner became aware of their untimely fate
or his own grievous loss.

But he was not long in discovering it ; nor
was Russell, who avowed himself the per-
petrator, slow to discover that the maledictions
and fierce threats of Hunter, who swore he
would give him a sound thrashing, would all
end in smoke, and that, in fact, the bully was
what he had suspected him to be, an arrant
coward.

Though older and stronger than Russell, and
boiling with rage, he dared not strike him.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 9

which the junior fully hoped he would have
done ; but off he started, as fast as his legs
could carry him, to tell Dr. Richards, whom he
accosted with a torrent of tears, as he met him
returning on his brown cob from his daily ride
in the country lanes.

"What are you crying for?" inquired the
really kind-hearted doctor, touched bv the boy's
distress, and exhibiting a weakness he rarely
showed within the precincts of the school.

"My rabbits, sir," replied Hunter, still
blubbering aloud ; " Russell has killed them all
with his ferrets,"

"Killed your rabbits," responded the doctor,
gravely; "and with ferrets, too? Are they his
own ferrets, did you say?"

"Oh yes, sir, his own; he keeps a lot of
them," added Hunter, observing that a storm
was brewing which would break with awful
effect on Russell's head.

On arriving at the school-house the culprit
was instantly sent for by Dr. Richards.

"Now, sir,' he said, in a voice of thunder,
"what right have you to kill Hunter's rabbits, and
what reason can you give for committing so gross
an outrage on your schoolfellow's property?"

"It was your own order, sir," pleaded
Russell, fearlessly, "that all the rabbits should
be killed ; and as Hunter did not seem inclined
to kill his, I did it for him."

lo MEMOIR OF

"And with your own ferrets, too," added the
doctor, seizing Russell by the collar and flog-
ging him with his long, heavy riding-whip, till
the whalebone appeared in splinters at its end.

Many a week passed before the marks of
that castigation became invisible on Russell's
back ; but never from that day did he suffer
further persecution either from Hunter or any
other bully of the school ; for, though good-
natured to a fault, he was discovered to be too
dangerous a customer to trifle with.

Without hunting, Jack Russell could not
have lived ; and severe as he knew the penalty
would be if he were caught indulging in it,
still hunting he must have in some shape or
other. Then, as ever since, it has been the
one master-passion of his life. " Men," some
one has truly said, "do not lose their passions
till they get their wings;" and certainly from
his earliest years Russell's passion for the chase
has clung to him closely as his own skin,
through good report and evil report, cheering
him in storms which few but he would have
faced; and in all weather, fair or foul, asserting
its ruling, nay, its paramount influence over
him even down to the close of his life.

But after that episode with Hunter, either
by compulsion, or more likely from inclination.
Jack disposed of his ferrets, and took to keeping
hounds. He had already won the good-will of

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. ii

the neighbouring farmers by joining them in
many a hvely rat-hunt among their stacks and
barns ; in bohing rabbits, too, from their over-
stocked hedges he had ever readily lent a useful
hand, doing them a substantial service, and
treating himself to a labour of love.

This sport, however, such as it was, did not
long satisfy the boy's aspirations. He was now
sixteen vears of age, and craved daily, as he
said, "for the ding-dong of hounds," a music
to which, by nature, his ear had been so hnely
attuned. A schoolfellow of his own standing,
called Bob Bovev, appears also to have had a
strong strain of hunting-blood in his veins ; and
hearing Russell's oft-expressed wish to keep a
few hounds, he came to him one day, and
despite the danger of doing so, proposed to
join him in starting a pack.

Accordingly, the two boys, forming a joint
mastership, were very soon able to muster a
scratch lot, consisting of four and a half couple
of hounds, which they kept at a blacksmith's on
the outskirts of Tiverton town. The worthy
Vulcan must have been a kindred spirit, for he
seems not only to have given up a linhay adjoin-
ing the forge for the use of the hounds, but to
have run the risk of incurring Dr. Richard's
displeasure and losing his custom, solely for the
love of hunting, and the sheer sake of promot-
ing the sport.

12 MEMOIR OF

Those were glorious days so long as they
lasted ; the farmers, to a man, seeing the hounds
chiefly managed by Russell, giving them a hearty
welcome over their land, and supporting them
in various ways calculated to show their cordial
interest in the welfare of the pack. One, for
instance, would say, " he'd a got a hare sitting
in fuzzy-park bottom, and ef Maister Rissell
wid on'y bring up his cry, he'd turn un out, and
they'd have a rare crack o' hunting, sure enow."
Another w^ould inform him that "his auld blind
maire had mit w4' a mishap, got stogged in a
mire, zo he'd a knacked her in th' head, and
Maister Rissell was kindly welcome to her vor
the dags."

Then, there was no end to the bread-and-
cheese and cider, wiiich the hospitable and
hound-loving yeomen of that county pressed
upon him and his companions, whenever the
chase led them within hail of their farm home-
steads. Perhaps the happiness of a schoolboy
was never more complete. Being a fair classical
scholar, and gifted w'ith far more than ordinary
abilities, which in any profession might have
carried him, but for his devotion to hounds, to
the top of the tree, he found no difficulty in
satisfying Dr. Richard's class requirements, and
at the same time, wiienever a half or a whole
holiday occurred, in following the pastime he so
keenly loved.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 13

The feeling, too, that he was snatching a
stolen pleasure might have enhanced

" . . . that theft of sweet deHght "

a hundredfold ; but dark clouds were now loom-
ing in the horizon, portending a short season
and disastrous end to this enjoyable life. A
shaft from some hidden enemy (and well for
him was it that his name was never discovered)
did the mischief. Some one, purporting to be
"a friend to good discipline," wrote to Dr.
Richards, and communicated the astounding
intelligence that a cry of hounds w^ere kept by
his scholars, Bovey and Russell, and that the
latter, if he was not sole manager, acted at least
as huntsman to the pack.

*' Ringleader, in fact, of the hunting gang,"
exclaimed Richards, indignantly, as an expression
of grave import darkened his whole countenance.
"What! set my discipline at nought, and bring
discredit on the honoured name of Blundell?"

He sent for Bovey, and expelled him on the
spot. Russell came next, little doubting that he
should share a similar fate ; as, like a mouse
tortured by a cat, he underwent a preliminary
examination before the fatal blow fell.

"You keep hounds, don't you?" demanded
the autocrat, in a stern and pitiless tone.

"No, sir."

" Do you dare to tell me a lie ? Bovey
has just told me you do keep them," said

14 MEMOIR OF

Richards, striking him in his wrath with great
violence.

" 'Tis no he, sir," pleaded Russell, pathetic-
ally; "for Bovey stole them yesterday, and sent
them home to his father at Pear-tree."

"Then that's lucky for you," responded the
doctor, "or I'd have expelled you too."

After this narrow escape, Russell, it would
appear, was compelled to quench as best he
could the latent fiame that burned w^ithin him,
and pay due deference, at least outwardly, to
the more than ever strict discipline exacted by
Dr. Richards.

It may be inferred, too, that he was now
compelled to give more attention to his studies
than he had hitherto done ; for, soon after his
fall as a master of hounds, two prizes were
offered for competition — an exhibition of ^^30 per
annum, tenable for four years, and a medal for
elocution — both of which he won in a canter,
regaining at the same time the favour of Dr.
Richards. Bat, had the w^orthy man been able
to foresee the use Jack made of the hrst £^0
he received as an exhibitioner, he would cer-
tainly have denounced him as a most unworthy
recipient of Blundell's bounty. Our hero expen-
ded it in buying a horse from the Rev. John
Froude, of Know^stone ; and, as he soon found
to his cost, did not get the best of the
bargain.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 15

The day, however was nigh at hand when
the pent-up flame was destined to be no longer
suppressed. Oxford was before him, the seat,
in those days, not of learning only, but of much
liberty and little restraint.

In 1 8 14, when he had just completed his
nineteenth year, he was admitted a commoner
at Exeter College, his matriculation being rather
a matter of form than dependent on the amount
of scholarship he had acquired at Tiverton
School. An easy-going head was Dr. Cole, the
rector of Exeter at that period ; the tutors, too,
taking their cue from him, with here and there
a sturdy conscientious exception, rarely interfered
with the daily life of the undergraduates, so
long as chapel and lectures were attended with
tolerable regularity.

Consequently, men did much as they liked
at all other times ; shot, fished, and hunted ;
boated, sparred, and drove tandem ; finishing
each day with heavy drinking and convivial
songs.

In this land of freedom, emancipated from
the Spartan discipline of Dr. Richards, and now
his own master, Russell found, to his unspeak-
able delight, an open and congenial field for
the cultivation of that science so deeply
implanted in his nature, and in the acquirement
of which he had already proved himself so apt
a pupil.

i6 MEMOIR OF

Cicero has said that without the divine
afflatus no one has ever become a distinguished
man ; and it has been long accepted, but by
whose authority I beheve is unknown, that a
poet must be born a poet, or he can never
become one either by education or art. So the
talent required by a huntsman must be inborn
— the gift of Nature alone — or the very founda-
tion on which he builds, no matter how^ he
may labour, or what experience he may have,
will be defective and unreliable to the end.

Endowed, then, by Nature with the first and
most essential element required in a huntsman,
Russell, as might be expected, lost no chance
of improving the gift, and gaining by experience
a sound practical knowledge of the infinite
mysteries pertaining to the " noble science."

If, however, the University, otherwise so
liberal with respect to its pupils, had omitted
the duty of providing instruction in that de-
partment, Russell, at least, found no lack of
first-class professors in the surrounding neigh-
bourhood. Philip Payne and Will Long were
at Heythrop, huntsman and first whip to his
Grace the sixth Duke of Beaufort, who, in
addition to his "home country," hunted the
Oxfordshire hills in those days with his grand
badger-pies ; while at Bicester, Stephen Goodall,
and Tom Wingfield, under Sir Thomas Mostyn,
possessed a knowledge of woodcraft second to

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 17

none in Great Britain. Heroes, in fact, were
those four men, in their line, worthy of song
as the heroes of Homer.

Then there was Mr. John Codrington on the
Old Berkshire side, an amateur who, in all the
details of field or kennel management, knew
scarcely a whit less than his professional fellow-
workmen of the Oxfordshire hills and vale.
Being a Master of the Meynell School and
an ardent promoter of the modern foxhound,
Codrington was eminently qualified to give
any tyro, who had the luck to hunt with him,
most instructive lessons in all that pertained
to the newest style of breeding hounds and
killing a fox.

No wonder, then, that at the feet of such a
Gamaliel, and with such professors so near at
hand, Russell should have proved himself a
ready and proficient scholar ; nor that, with his
natural aspirations, quick perception, and de-
cisive action, he should have gained that
practical knowledge of the " noble science
which few have attained to and none have
surpassed.

It was fortunate for Russell that his passion
for hunting was limited by the tide of his
exchequer, which, never overflowing, was too
often reduced to the lowest ebb ; for, had it
permitted him to hunt his four or five days a
week, it is very questionable if ever he would

i8 REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

have passed his final examination, and then
taken his degree — an important matter to him,
although in those days by no means a difficult
task. He himself was wont to say, " It was no
marvel Oxford was so learned a place, for men
brought up a fair stock of school learning, but
carried little away with them."

When tempted by some hunting friend to
" send on," perhaps to Bicester-Windmill, or
Bradwell Grove — an arrangement involving a
heavy expense as to hack, hunter, and groom —
Russell would point pathetically to his own
broad chest and lament his inability to do so
in dolorous tones : ** Impossible, my dear fellow ;
I'm suffering just now from tightness of the
chest ; it's the old complaint ; and my doctor
won't let me hunt at any price."

Still, hunting would have its vent, and Jack
managed to enjoy a liberal share of hunting, in
spite of Plutus and every other impediment.

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CHAPTER II.

Buys his F'irst Horse at Tiverton Fair, and sees his
First Stag killed with Lord Fortescue's Hounds
— Learns to Spar at Oxford, and Sets-to with
Denne and others — Wrestling Matches in Devon
and Cornwall his great delight.

Pastime for princes ! — prime sport of our nation !

Strength in their sinew, and bloom on their cheek ;
Health to the old, to the young recreation ;

All for enjoyment the hunting-field seek.

Egerton-Warburton.

Of the many hunting days enjoyed by Russell
in early life, no one stood out in such strong
relief as the 30th of September, 1814, for on it
he saw his first stag found and killed under
somewhat memorable circumstances. The

tedium of a long vacation at home, with little
or no sport to satisfy the cravings of his nature,
was beginning to tell heavily upon him, when
one day, as he sat pondering over the beauties
of Somerville's Chase, scarcely knowing how
else to amuse himself, his father appeared, and
with a few magic words put life into him.

"Come, Jack," he said, "my boy. The
hounds are going to meet at Baron's Down,
and I should like to show you a stag. Tiver-
ton Fair will take place to-morrow ; so you

20 MEMOIR OF

shall go there early and buy a horse for your-
self ; but mind, he must be a well-bred one
and up to your weight."

Jack felt as if he should require a strait-
waistcoat — almost beside himself — on hearing
such joyous news ; for of all things on earth
a day with the staghounds, and that, too, on
his own horse, was then, in the heyday of his
youth, the climax of his ambition.

Accordingly, the next morning, long before
daylight, he was off for Tiverton Fair, at that
time considered the Howden of the West, so
far as a goodly show of Exmoor ponies, Devon-
shire pack-horses, and half-bred hunters could
justify such a comparison. Nor did he waste
much time in making a selection ; a brown
mare with big limbs and a lean head, belonging
to a dealer named Rookes, caught his eye, and
as she proved to be a good mover, and was
said to be a five-year-old, he bought her after
a few words for £t,o.

Alas ! The mare proved to be only a two-
year-old ; but, although Russell was unmerci-
fully quizzed as a second Moses of green
spectacle celebrity, she turned out to be as
honest a beast as ever looked through a bridle.

A saddle and bridle having been readily lent
him by a friendly farmer, Jack, unconscious of
the tender age of the mare, and relying confi-
dently on his father's promise that ** he would

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 21

send on a fresh horse for him to the meet,"
rode her along at a hand canter, and without
drawing rein from Tiverton town-end to Baron's
Down, a distance, by the old road, of at least
fifteen miles.

"Never before, and never after," records the
son, "do I remember my father failing to fulfil
a promise he had made me ; but there, at
Baron's Down, for some reason which I cannot
now remember, the fresh horse did not appear."

The young mare w^as of course blown, but,
happily for the rider, not yet beaten. The
harbourer had reported a "warrantable deer;"
but the woodland was a deep one in which
he had made his lair, and many a change took
place before the two couple of tufters could
rouse and force the right animal away. By
that time the mare, under the freshening in-
fluence of gentle exercise and the breezy moor,
had fairly recovered herself, and as Jack avow^ed,
was then "fit as a fiddle to go for her life."

But now an awkward accident occurred that
suddenly checked, and might have terminated,
our hero's career before he had gone ten
strides with the hounds. Mr. Stucley Lucas, of
Baron's Down, w4io at a later period became
Master of the Staghounds, was riding a race-
horse called Erebus, and, as that gentleman
was known to be an authoritv on all matters
relating to the moor and the running of the

22 MEMOIR OF

deer, Russell very naturally looked to him as
the pilot for the day. The racer, however,
appears to have had but little fancy for Jack's
company, for, on approaching incautiously within
reach of his heels, he was kicked under the
stirrup-iron with such force that he was thrown
headlong to the ground.

But as the stirrup had acted as a shield to
his foot, so the friendly heather, breaking the
violence of his fall, saved his bones and
enabled him promptly to remount his steed
and follow the chase, if not a sadder, certainly
a wiser man for the rest of his life.

jack, now taking his own line, made the
best of his way to Hawkridge, from the high
ground of which he could view the hounds
driving hard, and the field following at a long
distance from him ; and just as he had deter-
mined to start in pursuit, a gentleman trotted
up from an opposite direction and counselled
him to remain where he was, "for" said he,
"they'll be sure to come this way, and you
can see the sport better from this point than
if you were with them."

Comprehending intuitively that his Mentor
spoke with authority, Russell without hesitation
adopted this kind advice, and again easing his
mare led her to and fro along the ridge, as
he feasted his eyes on the wild and stirring
scene taking place on the opposite moor.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 23

Russell's patience as a quiet looker-on was
not long tried ; for even now the heads of
the leading hounds were turning towards him,
and he could distinctly hear the deep chop of
their musical tongues, as, sinking the valley
near Tarrsteps, they crossed the Barle and
pointed directly for Hawkridge Moor.

Jack was now in his glory, alongside them
on a willing steed, and they tearing ahead over
the purple heather, as if on the very haunches
of their game. With a trimming scent and
never a check, it lasted for three long hours,
when the deer, to baffle the pack, took soil
under Slade Bridge, sinking himself in a deep
pool and allowing little more than his nostrils
to appear above the wave.

But the stratagem availed him not a rush ;
some five or six couple of old hounds dashed
into the stream, and swimming in full cry,
passed over him at first for a hundred or more
yards ; when James Tout, the huntsman, turned
the pack, and then casting them steadily back,
they winded him at once in his retreat. Every
hound was at him in an instant, and a gambol
of porpoises in that moorland stream could
scarcely have created a greater commotion.
'^ There stood the stag, beneath them in the
stream," writes Charles Kingsley, who must have
witnessed a similar turmoil, " his back against
the black rock, with its green cushions of

24 MEMOIR OF

dripping velvet, knee-deep in the clear amber
water, the hounds around him, some struggling
in the deep pool, some rolling and tossing and
splashing in a mad half-terrified ring, as he
reared in the air on his great haunches, with
the sparkling beads running off his red mane,
and, dropping on his knees, plunged his antlers
among them with blows which would have
brought certain death with it if the yielding
water had not broken the shock."

With such a scene enacted before his eyes,
Jack Russell must have been chained down to
remain a passive spectator for a single moment ;
nor, had Dr. Richards and all the Dons of
Oxford been present, could they have restrained
the wild impulse he felt to take part in the
fray ! A struggle it was for life and libertv ;
the last effort of the noble beast to escape
from his foes. Naturally, however, the young
hunter's sympathy being wholly with the
hounds, in he plunged waist-deep into the
flood, eager at once to encourage and help
them in the somewhat dangerous work of
capturing and killing the deer.

That event speedily followed ; and Jack,
being duly "blooded" according to the usage
of the period, received an impression of stag-
hunting, deep-cut, enduring, and only to be
effaced when the stream of life ceased to flow
in his veins.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 25

The late Earl Fortescue, Lord-Lieutenant
of the county, was at that time, from 181 2 to
1818, Master of the Staghounds ; and " those,"
Mr. Collyns tells us, "were glorious days;
ninety deer, forty-two stags, and forty-eight
hinds having fallen in fair chase during the
six years of his Mastership.* The halls of
Castle Hill rang merrily with the wassail of
the hunters, and many a pink issued from the
hospitable seats of the neighbouring squires, on
the bright autumn morning, to participate in
the pleasures of the chase. When a good stag
had been killed, the custom was for James
Tout, the huntsman, to enter the dining-room at
Castle Hill after dinner in full costume, with his
horn in his hand, and after he had sounded a
Mort, ' Success to stag-hunting ' was solemnly
drunk by the assembled company in port-wine,
after which Tout again retired 'to his own place,'
and rested himself after the labours of the day in
company with one or two favourites whose escape
from the kennel had been connived at. There,
before the ample fire, the huntsman dozed away
his evening, and killed his deer again ; while

" ' The staghound, weary with the chase,
Lay stretched upon the rushy floor,
And wag^ed in dreams the forest race
From Castle Hill to wild Exnioor.'' "

* The Devon and Somerset Stag-hounds, under the able Master-
ship of Mr. Fenwick Bisset, killed fifty deer (stag's and hinds) from
August to December, 1876.

26 MEMOIR OF

The eyes of the noble master, being himself
an enthusiastic stag-hunter, must have sparkled
with delight on witnessing the daring ardour
of the young Oxonian, as he struggled through
the deep water to collar the deer, and finally
emerged red-handed from the hght. Russell,
on that occasion, was not invited to enjoy the
princely hospitality of Castle Hill, and to cele-
brate in due form the death of his hrst deer ;
but, if such honour had been done him, certain
it is that he would have been the first of the
company to forswear the wassail bowl, and to
bid one and all an early '' good-night." For
has not his old friend, the late accomplished
and much-beloved Devonshire squire, George
Tempter of Stover, chronicled his unvarying
habit in this respect ? In poetic strain he
writes thus of him :

" Another Prime Minister rode from the North,

Of his talents Southmolton can best tell the worth ;
So prone to the chase that he followed each scent,
From the stag in the forest to ' bubble-a-vent ; '
More attached to his bed than a lover of wine,
He was sure to be sound on his pillow at nine."

" Bubble-a-vent "is a term used in otter
hunting ; when the quarry bolting in a hurry
or becoming distressed by the chase, is com-
pelled to vent ; and thus, by a chain of silver
bubbles rising to the surface, unconsciously
reveals his course beneath the turbid wave.

THE R5:V. JOHN RUSSELL. 27

But more of that anon ; when Russell himself,
a few years afterwards, started a pack of otter-
hounds, and, as he says, " did little more than
disturb the sleeping echoes of the North Devon
combes."

It was but a short time since, namely in
1876, when he was dining with the present
Lord Fortescue at Castle Hill, that the remem-
brance of his first entry with staghounds in
1 8 14 was brought back to his mind with vivid
effect after the lapse of so many years. He
had said " good night " to his hospitable and
kind host, and, homeward bound, was making
his way towards the hall door, accompanied by
some of the junior members of the family
holding on to his skirt, when Lord Ebrington
begged him to relate when and where he had
seen his first stag killed.

" With your grandfather," was the ready
reply; "we found him in Padwells, and killed
him on the Barle, under Slade Bridge, on the
30th of September, 1814 ; and there he is,"
added Russell, catching sight at that instant of
the head and antlers of the very animal, under
the frontlet of which appeared a tablet in-
dicating the above particulars.

Those who have once heard Russell tell a
story, especially if hunting were the theme, will
never forget the charm of his graphic touches,
the intensity of his tone, and the point he had

28 MEMOIR OF

the power of imparting to the minutest detail.
They will remember it as a picture painted by
a master-hand, with its light and shade strong
as one of Rembrandt's ; a picture true to life
as was ever transferred to canvas.

It may well be imagined, then, how effec-
tually those poetic touches must have inspired
his youthful hearers with a longing to traverse
the same wild moors, to witness the same
exciting scenes, and to play their part as their
forefathers and he had done, with like energy
and like love for the manly game. With hunt-
ing blood already running richly in their veins,
he must have stirred it to the very depths of
their hearts ; and, beyond all doubt, the poetry
of the scene, the music of the hounds, and
the odour of the heather will cling to their
memories for many a day to come.

Russell's return to Oxford about the 20th
of October brought his stag-hunting to a close
for the remainder of that season ; but he must
have been a gourmand indeed, if the bountiful
bill of fare provided by Alma Mater did not
fully satisfy his physical as well as mental
requirements. He had only been a short time
in residence at Exeter when a Kentish man,
called Denne, of Lydd, a gentleman-commoner
of the same college, introduced him to a pro-
fessor of pugilism, one Rowlands, who, having
graduated in the school founded by John

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 29

Broughton and the Duke of Cumberland, had
come down from Westminster to instruct the
youth of Oxford in the then popular art of
self-defence.

Jack, now standing just six feet in his shoes,
furnished with big limbs, a long reach, and
withal a stalwart frame, required little persua-
sion from his friend Denne to attend and take
part in the course of muscular lectures delivered
by Rowlands in that gentleman's rooms. Nor
was it long ere the professor was able to pro-
nounce him one of his most promising pupils —
a compliment duly appreciated by Russell, who,
although far from being either a quarrelsome or
a pugnacious character, possessed the ambition
of Caesar, if attacked, to prove himself a man
to the backbone.

In those days Exeter College teemed with
gentlemen-commoners, who, as a rule, were
either the eldest sons of large landed proprie-
tors in the West of England, or men already
in possession of their paternal acres, to whom
the payment of double fees was a matter of less
consideration than the distinction conferred by
the silk gown and velvet cap, which the Univer-
sity permitted them to wear. The}^ dined, too,
at a separate table from the commoners, namely,
at the first below the dai's ; and, exalted by these
and other privileges, here and there a fool would
give himself airs and affect to consider the

30 MEMOIR OF

latter simply as beings of an inferior caste,
companionship with whom it was his bounden
duty to eschew.

Such was Gordon, a gentleman-commoner
of Exeter at that time ; a conceited young
spark, whose chief ambition it was to associate
with out-college men, especially those of Christ
Church, to quote their sayings and doings at
every turn, and, in reference thereto, to institute
comparisons far from complimentary to the
members of his own college. In fact, he was a
tuft-hunter, and doubtless suffered as much con-
tempt from the men whom he courted as from
those whose society he would fain have ignored.

Denne, on the other hand, was as fine a
specimen of manhood as ever stepped in shoe-
leather ; independent as Achilles himself, lithe,
long-limbed, and of rare muscular development ;
he might have taken rank among the Promachi
of old, so skilled was he in the use of the caestus,
and so powerful was his blow. At Eton he had
been contemporary with Ball Hughes, the noted
dandy of the 7th Hussars ; with Harris of Hayne,
the ally and strenuous supporter of Russell in
after days ; and with that far-famed sportsman,
Sir Harry Goodricke. Denne was there dis-
tinguished as a great football player ; but
especially as the avenger of the lower boys,
who never failed to find shelter under his aegis,
when oppressed by the bullies of the upper

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 31

school. At Oxford, in a town-and-gown row,
he had knocked down the ringleader of the mob
— a prize-fighting butcher, the terror of the
slums — with such force that his comrades who
lifted him up carried him to the rear in a state
of insensibility, shouting as they did so that a
coroner's inquest would sit upon the corpse,
and hang Denne for the murder.

The butcher, however, lived to fight at
many a town-and-gown row after that day, but
never again could be induced to confront Denne
in single combat, either by the jeers of the
gownsmen or the encouragement of his friends.

It was only at rare intervals that Gordon
favoured the hall at Exeter with his company
at dinner, for as a general rule he preferred
taking that meal with his Christ Church friends,
either at Saddler's, the Mitre, or at the Maiden-
head Hotel. But dropping in on one occasion,
he had scarcely been seated five minutes at
table when the "art of sparring" became the
subject of conversation, and the insolent tone
in which he vaunted the prowess of the Christ
Church men, and disparaged that of his own
college, so disturbed the usually placid current
of Denne 's temper, that he challenged him
forthwith to arrange a meeting and prove his
words.

"Bring your three best men," he said, "from
Christ Church to my rooms, and if they can

32 MEMOIR OF

only stand up in a fair set-to against three of
Exeter, we'll give your heroes full credit for
all you say of them, but not till then."

"Thank you, Denne, for your most courteous
insinuation," replied Gordon, curling his upper
lip, and speaking in a tone of the bitterest irony ;
"there will be no difficulty whatever in finding
three good men and true to accept your chal-
lenge ; indeed, a score, if necessary, would be
forthcoming, so name your day, and they shall
be readv."

It was not usual for the commoners, before
the high table had risen, to move from their
seats and hold conversation with those at
another table, much less with the gentlemen-
commoners ; but Russell, who was seated at a
short distance below the latter, and had over-
heard all that had passed, could restrain him-
self no longer. "Don't forget me, Denne," he
said, jumping on his legs and stalking up to
his friend's side; "I'll be one of the three,
mind that, and the sooner we meet the better."

The Fiery Cross of Clan-Alpine was never
carried with such speed through the Trossachs
as Gordon's message to the Christ Church
men ; nor did the interest excited by it flag
for an instant, till three of them had been
chosen, who, in the opinion of all, were best
qualified to accept the challenge and carry to
the front the colours of the college.

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THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 33

On a fixed day, then, soon afterwards, the
party on both sides liaving assembled in Denne's
rooms, with Gordon alone to witness the match,
Russell was deputed to open the ball, the antag-
onist selected to meet him being the second
best man of the Christ Church lot. It was a
brisk set-to while it lasted, but, evidently, a
one-sided affair from beginning to end ; for
Russell's long reach, and quick, straight blows,
which fell with tremendous thuds on his adver-
sary's visage, brought the trial to a close in
little more than ten minutes.

The latter, admitting himself overmatched,
then declined the unequal contest ; while Russell,
self-reliant and still "fresh as paint," refused to
take off his gloves, calling stoutly for the next
man to come on. Denne, however, interposed
and would have his turn ; going in first with
No. I, then No. 3, and finally polishing them
both off with as much ease as if they had
been two old women.

"Now," said Russell, addressing Gordon
aside, "I think you had better take your three
fellows home and don't make such fools of
them again."

But the meeting did not end there. Denne,
willing to show the Christ Church men what a
real set-to meant, invited Russell to put on the
gloves with him and give them a lesson. Now,
Denne being a master-hand at the work, it was

D

34 MEMOIR OF

no joke setting to with him, for Rowlands him-
self had acknowledged that he could teach him
nothing. Nevertheless, Russell, regardless of the
punishment he knew must follow, responded
readily to the summons. He stood up, and
stopped and countered with the coolness of a
professional, but, as he soon found, to little
purpose. Denne forced him into a corner,
paused a moment, and thus warned him : " Now,
Jack, you are going to catch it!"

"Perhaps I am," said the other; "but don't
make too sure of that."

The words had scarcely escaped the enclo-
sure of his teeth, ere a tremendous left-hander,
coming straight from the shoulder, caught him
on the lower jaw with such violence that it
sent him reeling against a table, bringing him
and it to the ground with a fearful crash. "I
really thought," said Russell, relating the story
to a friend long afterwards, "that my chin had
been knocked away ; nor could I masticate a
bit of roast beef for many a subsequent day."

On the table that fell with him had stood a
brass-bound writing-desk, which, besides the
usual materials of such an article, contained a
number of letters and notes, curiously folded,
and written on coloured and gold-edged paper,
while not a few other souvenirs, more or less
valuable, were scattered broadcast on the floor.
Shocked apparently by this unwonted exposure.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 35

Denne, amid an outburst of laughter, from the
Christ Church men, dropped on his knees as
if he was shot, and, gathering the precious
favours together, crammed them again into the
treacherous receptacle, denouncing as he did so,
in no measured terms, the ill-luck that had
revealed them to view.

Denne, like a good fellow, did his best to
solace the wounded pride of his visitors by
giving them a sumptuous champagne breakfast ;
but, "nothing could a charm impart" to Gor-
don's spirits, who, according to Russell, ** carried
his tail between his legs like a cur-dog that had
been worrying sheep, and from that day never
cocked it again."

Prize-fighting was then the order of the
day ; and a set-to between two professionals of
celebrity would bring together men of all ranks,
patricians and proletarians, from the most re-
mote parts of England, to witness what it would
have been heresy then to call a barbarous
exhibition. The vale of Bicester, being on the
borders of two counties, was a convenient ren-
dezvous for such encounters ; and thither, on
the occasion of a grand fight, the University
would pour forth its legion of gownsmen ; some
betting heavily on the event, and some, chiefly
amateurs in boxing, going there for the sole
purpose of taking a first-class lesson in the
"noble art of self-defence."

36 MEMOIR OF

For such ruffianism, however, Russell had
no taste ; nor, skilled though he was in spar-
ring, could he ever be induced to ride even so
far as Bicester to witness a prize-fight.

"No!" he would say to Denne and others
pressing him to accompany them, "if I do get
on a horse, it shall be to see a hound with his
natural enemy, a fox, before him — a cross-
country fight, not one in a ring."

Still, the Greeks of Homer's song never
enjoyed the display of athletic skill more em-
phatically than John Russell; for, when a "turn
at wrastling" was about to be played between
Cann and Polkinghorn — the champions respec-
tively of Devon and Cornwall — he has ridden
a hundred miles in a day to see the manly
game come off. Then, if Cann, his compatriot,
proved successful in giving his adversary a
fair back-fall. I.e., in bringing three points of
his back to the earth without touching it with
his limbs, every star in the sky would have
cheered him on his long ride home ; ay, and
he would not have failed to describe every
feature of the "play" for months afterwards,
with sparkling comment and unflagging zest.

Prize-fighting, indeed, popular as it was
during the first quarter of the present century,
never appears to have taken the same hold of
the public mind in Devon and Cornwall as it
did in other parts of the United Kingdom.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 37

The worthies of those counties adhered, with
better taste, to their ancient and manly game
of wresthng, which they rightlv regarded as
testing to the utmost the strength, skill, and
courage of the combatants ; but, at the same
time, exhibiting none of the brutality that invari-
ably characterized every pugilistic encounter.

During the summer season, but especially
at that period of it between the hay and corn
harvest, when the cereals were assuming a
golden hue, and the orchards bending under
their burden of fruit, there was scarcely a large
village in the West which did not offer its
prizes, and enjoy annually the time-honoured
spectacle of a game at wrestling, the players
coming from all parts to contend for the
mastery.

I have heard Russell relate that, on a cer-
tain Sunday while at church in Cornwall, he
saw a man posted just outside the churchyard
gate ; six silver spoons were stuck into the
band of his hat, and there he stood, shouting at
the top of his voice: " Plaize to tak' notiss.
Thaise zix zilver spunes to be wrastled vor next
Thursday, at Poughill, and all gen'lemen wrast-
lers will receive fair play." The man, with the
spoons in his hat, then entered the church, went
up into the "singing gallery," and hung it on a
peg, from which it was perfectly visible to the
parson and the greater part of his congregation.

38 REV. JOHN RUSSELL

On another occasion in the same locality,
but not in the same church, snow lying deep on
the ground, the clergyman was reading the
second lesson, when a man opened the church
door, and, with a loud voice, proclaimed, "I've
a got 'un ! " and immediately withdrew. But
he had sounded the well-known note ; every
farmer and labourer who possessed a gun soon
followed him, and, within a couple of hours,
brought to the village inn a fine old fox, dug
out and murdered in cold blood.

As in Cornwall, so formerly in the forest of
Dartmoor ; Tom French, the once notorious
vulpicide, was wont to say of a fox, "'Tis a
nasty varmint, I tell 'ee, and aufght to be killed
on a Sunday, so well as on a week-day;" a
doctrine he was not slow to practice, especially
when a fall of snow gave him the chance : —

"While faithless snaws ilk step betray

Whar he has been . "

Burns.

CHAPTER III.

A Day with the Heythrop and Sir Thomas Mostyn's
Packs — Russell's Terriers — Anecdotes of "Tip"
AND "Nelson" — The Process of Manufacturing so-
called "Fox-terriers" for the Market.

They champ'd the bit and twitch'd the rehi,
And paw'd the frozen earth in vain ;
Impatient with fleet hoof to scour
The vale, each minute seem'd an hour.

Egerton-Warbirton.

From the period of his first matriculation at
Oxford to that on which he donned his bache-
lor's gown and quitted the University, Russell
appears to have kept no regular record of his
hunting days. Nevertheless, when in genial
company, the sport and incidents of many a
run, witnessed at that time and chronicled on
the unwritten pages of his memory, were still
ever and anon flashed out with the freshness of
a schoolboy who has only recently enjoyed his
first mount with a pack of hounds. Upwards
of sixty years had rolled by since then ; yet
every detail of those early scenes he still
painted in colours so fresh and vivid, that it
was dilBcult to believe they could have oc-
curred in the days " when George the Third
was King."

40 MEMOIR OF

The man who has once heard Russell hold
forth on some favourite topic, must indeed have
a very defective memory if he ever forget the
charm of his earnest, natural manner, or the
epigrammatic and pointed style in which he
was wont to tell the simplest tale ; like the
Wedding-guest, the listener ''cannot choose but
hear," spell-bound at once by his glittering eye
and winged words.

To attempt a description of the sport he
saw with hounds during his residence at Oxford,
in the absence of written records, would be a
task beyond the design of the present memoir ;
but the adventure of one disastrous dav, on
which he went to a distant meet and never
saw a hound, must not be omitted, for it left
such an impression on his memory that to his
latest hour he spoke of it with mixed feelings
of disappointment and remorse.

. The fixture was Sandford Brake; the hounds
those of his Grace the sixth Duke of Beaufort,
who, as the reader has already been informed,
hunted the Oxfordshire hills from Heythrop
at one season of the year, and his "home
country" from Badminton at another. The
fame of the pack, the favourite colour being
badger-pie, had at this period traversed the
length and breadth of the land. There were
no hounds like them ; none that combined so
perfectly the close hunting and hard driving

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 41

qualities required in a foxhound ; none that
surpassed them in power, symmetry, and gran-
deur of form,

Russell had never yet seen this noble pack ;
but at every wine and supper party he attended,
if there w^ere any hunting men present, the chief
theme of their conversation invariably turned
on the Beaufort badger-pies ; so it may w^ell be
imagined how he longed to feast his eyes on
so attractive a sight, to w^atch them at work, and
enjoy the sport they so rarely failed to show.

With his head, then, brimful of such antici-
pations, dry indeed must he have found the
task of getting up the Greek lecture over which
he w^as poring, when one morning his friend
Peter Jackson, a Yorkshireman devoted to
hounds, rushed into his rooms, and exhibiting a
card of the hunting appointments, ' put his
finger on " Sandford Brake," and said:

" Now, then, Russell, throw that physic lo
the dogs ; here's a chance of seeing the Hey-
throp Hounds ; let's be off at once to secure
the two best nags we can find in Oxford."

No invitation could have been more accept-
able.

"With all my heart," responded Russell,
chucking his Herodotus to the far end of the
room, and starting off, in company with his
friend, to Austin's stables, reputed in those days
to be the first in Oxford.

42 MEMOIR OF

Their selection was soon made ; Jackson
choosing a big thorough-bred chestnut, with
sloping shoulders, flat hocks, and rare sinewy
thighs ; while Russell, fixed on a well-known
horse called "Charlie," which, though "speech-
less in one eye," Austin declared "could see
a weak place in a bullfinch better than ever
a horse in his stable."

Accordingly, on the day before the meet,
Charlie and the chestnut, ridden by a couple of
grooms, were duly "sent on" to the Chequers
Inn, there to rest for the night, the stables of
that hostelry being only at a short distance from
the cover-side ; while in the morning, if Russell
and his friend had been mounted on two fierv
dragons, they could scarcely have been carried
through the air with more speed and impetuosity
than by the two raw-boned hacks which, ewe-
necked and clean as Eclipse in their pasterns,
bore them to the meet in so short a time.

But, could they have anticipated the fruit-
lessness of their haste, they might have spared
the poor brutes' legs, and their own pockets at
the same time ; for the roads were hard as iron,
and no hounds had as yet arrived. In fact, a
keen north wind had set in at daybreak, and
although a goodly company had mustered at
the cover-side, a feeling of mistrust prevailed,
that unless a speedy change took place, hunting
would be out of the question for that day.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 43

Now it was, for the first time, that Russell
met those celebrated brothers, Mr. Rawlinson, of
Chadlington, and Mr. Lindo, a pair of resolute
and brilliant horsemen who were not to be
beaten in any country. The former will also
be remembered as the owner of Revenge and
Ruby, and subsequently of Coronation, winner
of the Derby in 1841 ; while, of the latter, it is
scarcely too much to sa}^ that every hunting
man in the kingdom either knew him personally
or knew him by his portrait, which, admirably
painted by some sporting artist, appeared in all
the print-shops of town and country at that
period. Even on snuff-boxes Mr. Lindo might
have been seen standing up in his stirrups, and
going "a slapping pace" on his famous horse
the Clipper — a horse so quick at his fences,
that it was said he could "go a mile and a
half over a country while others were going a
mile."

But the man of all others who attracted the
admiration of our Oxonians was Sir Henry
Peyton, the second baronet of that name. He
had driven four greys to the meet, and with
characteristic good-nature had entered at once
into a horse-and-hound conversation with Russell,
whose impatience at not seeing the hounds he
had observed with no little sympathy.

" Tis a north-easter, keen as a knife," said
the baronet, pointing with his crop to the very

44 MEMOIR OF

eye of the wind. " Hard lines on you, young
fellow, for I dare say you've cut lecture to
come here, and now, I fear, the hounds are
going to cut you."

" I hope not. Sir Henry ; for that would be
the unkindest cut of all."

" Never mind ! come again ; better luck next
time. I knew by the going of the near leader
that the road was getting harder and harder
every yard of the way. I've lately had him
nerved ; and when there's a touch of frost in
the ground he can't keep his secret a bit ; but
he's all right at other times."

'' I can see nothing amiss. Sir Henry," replied
Russell, whose interest in that new operation,
which he now heard of for the first time, made
him forget for a moment the non-arrival of the
hounds ; "he looks, however, like a hunter all
over."

" The cleverest horse across country I ever
owned," said the baronet, right pleased with the
observant remark. He then took up the fore-
leg of the leader, and drew Russell's attention
to the all but invisible marks of the operator's
skill, adding, " It's an ill wind that blows no
luck ; for he bids fair to be as good in harness
as out of it ; so I ought not to grumble."

No man of that day, as Russell well knew,
could do more with a horse than Sir Henry
Peyton. In the saddle or on the box, he was

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 45

equally at home ; the prince of all coachmen,
gentle or simple, and as brilliant a performer
across country as ever rode to hounds.

A small knot of gentlemen had now gathered
round the drag, admiring the well-appointed
team, and exchanging short greetings with its
pleasant owner, when at length a horseman in
green plush, pricking along at a quick trot
towards the meet, was viewed in the distance,
and at once recognised as Will Long.

" His Grace's compliments to the field," said
the well-mannered whip, as he lifted his cap
respectfully to one and all, " and begs to say
the frost is too hard to take the hounds out
of kennel."

"Then," said Russell, in an agony of dis-
appointment, " I hope when you get back that
you'll find them all dead on their benches."

It is almost needless to say that, if such a
calamity had occurred, no man on earth would
have deplored it more than John Russell, as
every one who knew the humanity of his nature
and his love for a hound will readily understand.
Hard words they were, it is true ; but, beyond
all doubt, they were words only, and not wishes,
which he thus allowed himself to blurt out ;
and, as the keenest remorse overtook him with
no limping foot, let us hope that the recording
angel has long since blotted out the angry
speech for ever. Will Long, however, never

46 MEMOIR OF

forgot it ; for, years afterwards, when the
" chilHng touch of Time" had turned the locks
of both of them to silver-grey, and they were
returning together to Badminton, after a hard
day with the present Duke's hounds, Russell
asked him if he remembered the first time they
met at Sandford Brake.

"Yes, sir," said Will, "and I'm not likely to
forget it. You hoped I should find all the
hounds dead upon the benches. But there, I
didn't think you meant it."

" Quite right, Will ; in two minutes after-
wards I could have bitten my tongue out for
having made such a speech."

It is impossible to overrate the estimation
and respect with which Will Long was regarded,
not only by the Beaufort family, but by all
who followed him to the chase and enjoyed his
cheery company in days gone by ; still, brilliant
horseman as he was acknowledged to be, I have
heard Russell declare that as a practical hunts-
man he could never hold a candle to old Philip
Payne nor to the present Duke. That probably
was the case ; nevertheless it must not be
forgotten that Will Long hunted those hounds
with signal success from 1826 down to October,
1855, a period of twenty-nine years ; when,
overtaken at length by the infirmities of age,
he retired from active service, carrying with
him his well-earned laurels, and enjoying, by

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 47

the bountv of his noble master, a comfortable
cottage, a steady hunter, and a handsome pension
to the last day of his long life. In February,
1877, poor Will was borne to his narrow home
— "an earth made for rest" — at the patriarchal
age of fourscore years and four. He was buried
at Oldbury-on-the-Hill, where Philip Payne lies ;
and never to its kindred clay were committed
the relics of a kindlier spirit or a truer man : —

" Reliquit equos, cornu, canes,
Tandem quiescant ejus manes."

The last time Russell met him he inquired
if his brother Michael were yet alive.

"Yes," replied Russell, "and well, too."

" I'm glad to hear that," responded the
veteran ; " he gave my son Nimrod his first
mount, took him out of my wife's arms and held
him on the saddle when he was only a month
old. Please give him my duty." An early
entry this for that well-known huntsman, Nimrod
Long.

Among the many hunting friends with whom
Russell associated at Oxford, there was no one,
perhaps, whose sympathies accorded so closely
with his own as did those of Mr. Philip Dauncey,
of Little Horwood, a Buckinghamshire gentle-
man, even then distinguished as a bold rider
and thorough houndsman ; and who subsequently
became widely known as a successful breeder
of Guernsey cows, the cream and butter of

48 MEMOIR OF

which obtained such high favour in the royal
household. Like tendencies, the love of hunting,
with all its accompanying charms, had brought
them together on many occasions to the merry
cover-side ; but one day, on which they had
met Sir Thomas Mostyn's hounds, stood out in
strong relief on the tablet of Russell's memory,
and probably left a like impression on that of
Mr. Dauncey.

Stephen Goodall, a real Titan himself, and
the progenitor of a race of Titans — the three
Goodalls — of whom the country that bred them
may well be proud, was about to draw a small
willow spinney on the north side of Bletching-
ton House, when a fox, closely pursued by the
Duke of Beaufort's pack, crossed in view of
his hounds, and, putting his head like an arrow
for Gravenall Wood, led the now united field
and packs at a terrific pace over the stifTest
portion of the Bicester Vale. The brook is a
bumper, even with its banks — that brook which
has baptized more Oxford men than any parson
in the county — and the hounds, five or six
couple abreast, are fiinging desperately for the
lead, as they make straight for the stream, and
dash into it amid a cloud of spray.

" Give them room, gentlemen, do," shouted
Will Long to the field, as his horse, pricking
his ears and measuring the tide, was the first
to sweep over, like a swallow on a summer's

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 49

eve. Rivalry was running high, and the warning
was Httle heeded by a couple of Heythrop
thrusters, who, pressing too closely on Will's
heels, gave their horses no chance of distinguish-
ing the water lying on the bank from the real
channel of the brook ; consequently they
floundered headlong into the flood ; and, like
the famous Brewers, immortalized by Mr.
Egerton-Warburton, they very narrowly escaped
" a watery bier."

Russell and Dauncey were more fortunate ;
the latter on a game little mare, well bred and
stout as whalebone, and the other on old
Charlie, taking it evenly in their strides, and
landing together on the right side, a bowshot
clear of the pack ; while Lord Jersey, Sir Henry
Peyton, Captain Evans, and Tom Wingfield —
men whom nothing but the Styx itself could
stop — were the only others well up, as the
hounds, now all but mute and carrying a
desperate head, were breaking the fence into
the lower quarter of Gravenall Wood.

But the fox was sinking ; and Will Long,
acting as whip and huntsman in one (for Philip
Payne, Stephen, and Griff Lloyd had not yet
crossed the Rubicon), knew it full well, as he
dashed over the cover fence and rang out the
death-knell in a strain of ecstatic delight.

"Never before," said Russell, as he described
the scene to an old friend, " never before had

E

50 MEMOIR OF

I witnessed so glorious a run ; and you may
well imagine the pride I felt on finding myself
in such good company. I could have hugged
old Charlie on the spot ! And as for Will
Long, I looked upon him as something more
than mortal — a demigod in disguise."

The Christ Church drag, consisting recently
of four and a half couple of hounds with a bag
of aniseed or a red herring for their fox, had,
I believe, no existence in those days — at all
events, I never heard Russell allude to it ; but
if such had existed, he certainly would have
been the last man to join so spurious and
questionable a sport. The love of orthodox
hunting ; the instinct of the hound in its fullest
development ; the science, in fact, so ably taught
by such men as Philip Payne, Stephen Goodall,
and Mr. John Codrington, had already taken
so strong a hold of his mind and that of his
contemporaries, that they were little likely to
swerve from the faith and fall into such a
heresy.

The use of the hound for the purpose of
hunting a red herring was certainly never con-
templated by Somerville when he penned —

"The chase I sing, hounds and their various breed,
And no less various use."

No ! the poet's animated and fine verse
applies only, as we know, to the chase of the
stag, the fox, the otter, and the hare, those

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 51

denizens of the stream and forest — the legitimate
" beasts of venerie " in all ages. In any pack
of Russell's, hunted by him during the last fifty
years, the fate of a hound touching on such
riot would have been quickly sealed ; on return-
ing to his kennel I can almost hear him sav
to old Will Rawle, his faithful and devoted
henchman for forty years, ** Will, that hound
eats no more of my meal, mind that ; " and
the culprit would thenceforth disappear from
the scene.

In less than ten years, however, after Russell
had taken his degree, steeple-chasing, with its
concomitant vice of heavy betting, became the
popular amusement of the University ; and about
the same period the drag, established at Christ
Church, provided an afternoon ''grind" across
country for the men, who either were unable
to cut college lectures, or cared not a rush
whether it was a fox or a red herring they
rode after, so long as they had their "grind."

The line of country chosen for the drag was
generally a stiff one, and the pace frequently a
cracker from first to last, consequently the
staying powers of every hack-hunter in Oxford
were gauged to a pound ; and bitter enough
were the complaints of the stable-keepers at the
beaten and maimed condition in which their
horses were often brought home after a day
with the drag.

52 MEMOIR OF

"No, sir," said Squeaker Smith to a member
of Christ Church, surnamed Hard-riding Dick,
" no, sir, you ain't a-going to have a horse of
mine again in a hurry for that drag ; I picked
thorns enough to make a crow's nest out of
Woodman's legs the last time you rode him,
and he never touched a grain of corn for a
week afterwards. 'Tisn't hunting, nor 'tisn't
hacking ; but, to speak plainly, 'tis barbarous
cruelty to a noble animal."

Smith was quite right ; and Russell, had he
been present, would have highly commended
the humanity of his decision.

Russell had been in residence some fourteen
terms, and was now, with a view to his final
examination, busily employed in preparing for
the schools and furbishing up his old Tiverton
armour, which, he was not slow to discover,
had grown somewhat rusty by habitual disuse
and the easy conditions of his college life.
His degree being of paramount importance to
him, the short period that now remained for get-
ting up his books was naturally accompanied by
the inevitable doubt and anxiety, which even the
ablest scholars are apt to feel at such a time.

It was on a glorious afternoon towards the
end of May, when strolling round Magdalen
meadow with Horace in hand, but Beckford in
his head, he emerged from the classic shade
of Addison's Walk, crossed the Cherwell in a

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 53

punt, and passed over in the direction of
Marston, hoping to devote an hour or two to
study in the quiet meads of that hamlet, near
the charming slopes of Elsfield, or in the
deeper and more secluded haunts of Shotover
Wood. But before he had reached Marston a
milkman met him with a terrier — such an
animal as Russell had as vet onlv seen in his
dreams ; he halted, as Actaeon might have done
when he caught sight of Diana disporting in
her bath ; but, unlike that ill-fated hunter, he
never budged from the spot till he had won
the prize and secured it for his own. She
was called Trump, and became the progenitress
of that famous race of terriers which, from that
day to the present, have been associated with
Russell's name at home and abroad — his able
and keen coadjutors in the hunting-field. An
oil-painting of Trump is still in existence, and
is, I believe, possessed by H.R.H. the Prince
of Wales ; but as a copy, executed by a fair
and talented artist, is now in my possession,
and was acknowledged by Russell to be not
only an admirable likeness of the original, but
equally good as a type of the race in general,
I will try, however imperfectly, to describe the
portrait as it now lies before me.

In the first place, the colour is white with
just a patch of dark tan over each eye and
ear, while a similar dot, not larger than a

54 MEMOIR OF

penny piece, marks the root of the tail. The
coat, which is thick, close, and a trifle wiry, is
well calculated to protect the body from wet
and cold, but has no affinity with the long,
rough jacket of a Scotch terrier. The legs are
straight as arrows, the feet perfect ; the loins
and conformation of the whole frame indicative
of hardihood and endurance ; while the size
and height of the animal may be compared to
that of a full-grown vixen fox.

'' I seldom or ever see a real fox-terrier
nowadays," said Russell recently to a friend
who was inspecting a dog show containing
a hundred and fifty entries under that de-
nomination ; " they have so intermingled strange
blood with the real article, that, if he were
not informed, it would puzzle Professor Bell
himself to discover what race the so-called
fox-terrier belongs to."

"And pray, how is it managed?" inquired
the friend, eager to profit by Russell's long
experience in such matters. " I can w^ell re-
member Rubie's and Tom French's Dartmoor
terriers, and have myself owned some of that
sort worth their weight in gold. True terriers
they were, but certainly differing as much from
the present show dogs as the wild eglantine
differs from a garden rose."

" The process," replied Russell, " is simply
as follows : they begin with a smooth bitch

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 55

terrier ; then, to obtain a finer skin, an Italian
greyhound is selected for her mate. But as
the ears of the produce are an eyesore to the
connoisseur, a beagle is resorted to, and then
little is seen of that unsightly defect in the
next generation. Lastly, to complete the mixture,
the bulldog is now called on to give the
necessary courage ; and the composite animals,
thus elaborated, become, after due selection, the
sires and dams of the modern fox-terriers.
This version of their origin," continued he, " I
received from a man well qualified to speak
on the subject."

The bulldog blood thus infused imparts
courage, it is true, to the so-called terrier ; he
is matchless at killing any number of rats in
a given time ; will fight any dog of his weight
in a Westminster pit ; draw a badger heavier
than himself out of his long box ; and turn
up a tom-cat possessed even of ten lives, before
poor pussy can utter a wail. But the ferocity
of that blood is in reality ill suited — nay, is
fatal — to fox-hunting purposes ; for a terrier
that goes to ground and fastens on his fox, as
one so bred will do, is far more likely to
spoil sport than promote it ; he goes in to
kill, not to bolt, the object of his attack.

Besides, such animals, if more than one slip
into a fox-earth, are too apt to forget the game,
and fight each other, the death of one being

56 MEMOIR OF

occasionally the result of such encounters.
Hence, Russell may well have been proud of the
pure pedigree he had so long possessed and so
carefully watched over. Tartars they were, and
ever have been, beyond all doubt ; going up
to their fox in any earth, facing him alternatelv
with hard words and harder nips, until at length
he is forced to quit his stronghold, and trust to
the open for better security.

A fox thus bolted is rarely a pin the worse
for the skirmish ; he has had fair play given
him, and instead of being half strangled, is fit
to flee for his life. The hounds, too, have
their chance, and the field are not baulked of
their expected run.

Russell's country is technically known as a
hollow one ; that is, a country in which rockv
fastnesses and earths, excavated by badgers,
abound in every direction. Consequently, on
every hunting day a terrier or two invariablv
accompanied him to the field ; and certainly no
general ever depended with more trust on the
services of an aidc-de-caiup than he on those of
his terriers. If in chase they could not always
live with the pack, still they stuck to the line,
and were sure to be there or thereabouts when
they were wanted, if the hounds threw up even
for a minute.

" I like them to throw their tongue freely
when face to face with their enemy," said

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 57

Russell one day, as he stood listening to his
famous dog Tip, marking energetically in a
long drain some six feet below the surface ;
"you know then w4iere they are, and what
they're about."

The late Earl Fitzhardinge, one of the
finest sportsmen of his day, was wont to give a
very similar reason for mounting his whips on
confirmed roarers.

" I like to know where the beggars are,"
he would say ; " for, with the bagpipes going, I
can hear, if I don't see them, in the densest
cover."

Entered early, and only at fox, Russell's ter-
riers were as steady from riot as the staunchest
of his hounds ; so that, running together with
them, and never passing over an earth without
drawing it, they gave a fox, whether above
ground or below it, but a poor chance of not
being found, either by one or the other. A
squeak from a terrier was the sure signal of a
find, and there was not a hound in the pack
that would not fly to it, as eagerly as to
Russell's horn, or his own wild and marvellous
scream.

This steadiness from riot was, of course,
the result of early education on one object — the
fox ; nor did Russell consider it needful to
train his terriers by progressive steps, according
to the plan adopted by Dandie Dinmont.

58 MEMOIR OF

"A bonny terrier that, sir; and a fell chiel
at the vermin, I warrant him — that is, if he's
been weel entered, for it a' lies in that."

"Really, sir," said Brown, "his education
has been somewhat neglected, and his chief
property is being a pleasant companion."

"Ay, sir! that's a pity, begging your pardon
— it's a great pity, that — beast or body, educa-
tion should aye be minded. I have six terriers
at home ; forbye twa couple of slow hounds,
five grews, and a wheen other dogs. There's
Auld Pepper and Auld Mustard, and Young
Pepper and Young Mustard, and Little Pepper
and Little Mustard. I had them a' regularly
entered, first wi' rottens, then wi' stots or
weasels, and then wi' the tods and brocks ; and
now they fear nothing that ever cam' wi' a
hairy skin on't."

A hundred anecdotes might be related of
the wondrous sagacity displayed in chase bv
Russell's terriers ; but, as Tip's name has been
already mentioned, one of his many feats will
sulBce to show, not merely the large amount of
instinctive faculty, but the almost reasoning
power with which that dog was endowed.
Russell himself told me the story, as, some
thirty years ago, in going to cover, he drew my
attention to a deep combe not far from Lidcote
Hall, the seat of Sir Hugh and the birthplace
of poor Amy Robsart.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 59

"Do you see," he said, "that dark patch of
hanging gorse, hemmed in on the northern side
by yonder knoll ? Well, I've seen many a good
run from that sheltered nook. On one occasion,
however, I had found a fox which, in spite of
a trimming scent, contrived to beat us by
reaching Gray's Holts, and going to ground
before we could catch him." Now those earths
are fathomless and interminable as the Cata-
combs of St. Calixtus. They are so called
'Gray' from the old Devonshire name, signify-
ing a badger, a number of those animals having
long occupied that spot. Consequently such a
fortress once gained is not easily to be stormed,
even by Tip or the stoutest foe.

"Again, we found that fox a second time;
and now, while the hounds were in close pursuit
and driving hard, to my infinite surprise I saw
Tip going off at full speed in quite a different
direction."

" He's off, sir, to Gray's Holts ; I know he
is," shouted Jack Yelland, the whip, as he called
my attention to the line of country the dog was
then taking.

That proved to be the case. The fox had
scarcely been ten minutes on foot when the dog,
either by instinct, or, as I believe, by some
power akin to reason putting two and two to-
gether, came to the conclusion that the real
object of the fox was to gain Gray's Holts,

6o MEMOIR OF

although the hounds were by no means pointing
in that direction. It was exactly as if the dog
had said to himself: 'No, no! You're the
same fox, I know, that gave us the slip once
before ; but you're not going to play us that
trick again.'

''Tip's deduction was accurately correct; for
the fox, after a turn or tw^o in cover, put his
nose directly for Gray's Holts ; hoping, beyond
a doubt, to gain that city of refuge once more,
and then to whisk his brush in the face of his
foes. But in this manoeuvre he was fairly out-
generalled by the dog's tactics. Tip had taken
the short cut — the chord of the arc — and, as
the hounds raced by at some distance off, there
I saw him," continued Russell, "dancing about
on Gray's Holts, throwing his tongue frantically,
and doing his utmost, by noise and gesture, to
scare away the fox from approaching the earths.

" Perfect success crowned the manoeuvre :
the fox, not daring to face the lion in his path,
gave the spot a wide berth ; while the hounds,
carrying a fine head, passed on to the heather,
and after a clinking run killed him on the
open moor."

Tip scarcely ever missed a day for several
seasons, and never appeared fatigued, though
he occasionally went from fifteen to twenty
miles to cover. He died at last from asthma
in the Chorley earths, Russell having dug up

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 6i

to him and the fox in half an hour ; but, to
his master's great grief, the poor old dog was
quite dead.

Russell looked upon his terriers as his fire-
side friends — the penates of his home ; nor was
he ever happier than when to some congenial
spirit he was recording the service they had
done him in bygone days ; and vast indeed was
the store from which he drew so many interest-
ing facts connected with their history.

One peculiarity of Tip's, however, must not
be omitted : on a hunting morning no man on
earth could catch him, after he had once seen
Russell with his top-boots on.

Nettle, too, a prodigy of courage and sagacity,
would follow no one but her master ; and not
even him, except the hounds were at his heels ;
knowing full well that her services were only
required in connection with the hunting-field.

Then there was the one-eyed Nelson, a
genius in his way ; and in point of valour, a
worthy namesake of England's immortal hero.
Russell had run a fox to ground near Tetcott,
the seat of Sir William Molesworth ; but tiers
of passages, one under the other, rendered the
earth so perfect a honeycomb that the terriers
were soon puzzled, nor did the diggers know
what line to follow ; there was scent everywhere.
Nelson at length came out, and at some dis-
tance off commenced digging eagerly at the

62 REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

greensward : " Here's the fox," said Russell,
"under Nelson's nose, or I'll forfeit my head."
The dog went in again, and marking hard and
sharp, under that very spot, the men broke
ground and speedily came upon the fox.
Russell then, with his arm bared, drew him
forth ; and setting him on his legs, treated his
field to as merry a ten minutes over that wild
country as man's heart could ever wish to
enjoy.

CHAPTER IV.

Is Ordained, and Licensed to his First Curacy — Keeps
Otter-hounds at South Molton, and Hunts with
Mr. Froude — Anecdotes of that Gentleman and
Dr. Phillpotts, the late Bishop of Exeter.

Having resided the necessary number of terms
required by the University, Russell entered the
Schools for his final examination, declaring, as
he crossed the awful Quadrangle, that he felt
at that moment "very like Atlas, with a world
of weight on his shoulders." However that
might be, the stock of erudition he had acquired
at Tiverton stood him again in good stead, and
enabled him, with a very small amount of
previous preparation, to sustain the ordeal
bravely. His ambition did not prompt him to
go up for honours, nor did his name appear in
the class list ; but, having satisfied the examiners
and obtained his pass paper, he turned his back
on the Bodleian Library with a grateful and
joyous heart.

That night, in accordance with an old
University custom, the happy event was cele-
brated with a grand supper ; and if, during the
orgies that followed, the toast of fox-hunting,
given with nine times nine and three cheers

64 MEMOIR OF

more, did not effectually wake up the Dons,
not only of Exeter, but of Lincoln and Jesus,
they, too, must have swallowed a magnum of
port, or they never could have slept through
such a din.

Once more, before he quits the University,
but this time with a light and elastic step, if not
"with pride in his port," he crossed that same
Quadrangle, where

" Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head,"

to put on his Bachelor's gown ; and being soon
afterwards nominated by the Rev. W. B. Stawell
to the curacy of George Nympton — a rural
parish, with a sparse population, near South
Molton — he was ordained a deacon in 1819, and
priest in the following year. George Pelham,
then Bishop of Exeter, performed the ceremony,
in the Chapel Royal, London, where, notwith-
standing the long double journeys by coach,
and the expenses incidental thereto — a serious
tax on a salary of ^^60 a year — the young
candidate was summoned to attend on each
occasion.

" The railway between Exeter and London
has been a great boon to me," said the late
Bishop of Exeter to his son, Charles Phillpotts,
" for by it not only do I save time, but I can
now travel to town with the utmost comfort for
a £^ note ; whereas formerly, by sleeping a
night in Bath, and posting it the whole way, it

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 65

cost me £50, and much fatigue on every
journey."

That still more primitive Churchman, the
judicious Hooker, must have fared far worse
than either of his clerical brethren, when he
undertook a journey on foot from Oxford to
Exeter, taking Salisbury on his way, to see his
friend and patron, the good Bishop Jewel.
The story is so quaintly told by that genial old
fisherman, Izaak Walton, that I am tempted to
quote the passage verbatim : —

" At the bishop's parting with him, the
bishop gave him good counsel and his benedic-
tion, but forgot to give him money ; which
when the bishop had considered, he sent a
servant in all haste to call Richard back to
him ; and at Richard's return, the bishop said
to him, ' Richard, I sent for you back to lend
you a horse, which hath carried me many a mile,
and I thank God with much ease ; ' and
presently delivered into his hand a walking-staff,
with which he professed he had travelled through
many parts of Germany. And he said, * Richard,
I do not give, but lend you my horse ; be sure
you be honest, and bring my horse back to me
at your return this way to Oxford. And I do
now give you ten groats to bear your charges
to Exeter ; and here is ten groats more, which
I charge you to deliver to your mother, and tell
her I send her a bishop's benediction with it,

66 MEMOIR OF

and beg the continuance of her prayers for me.
And if you bring my horse back to me, I will
give you ten groats more, to carry you on foot
to the college ; and so, God bless you, good
Richard.' "

That Russell entered on the work of the
ministry with a due sense of the sacred office
and his own responsibility, will no doubt be
charitably questioned by many, who have only
heard of his fame in the hunting-field. But, if
an ever-earnest readiness to visit the sick and
world-weary ; to administer consolation to all
who needed it ; to relieve the wants of his
poorer brethren, however poor himself ; to
preach God's Word with the fervour, if not the
eloquence, of a Bourdaloue ; to plead in many
a neighbouring pulpit, whenever invited to do
so, the cause of charitable institutions, the funds
of which never failed to derive substantial aid
from his advocacy during a period of fifty
years — if such things be of good report, and
carry any weight, no human being can say of
him — though he would be the first to say it
of himself — that his mission as a Christian
minister had been altogether that of an un-
profitable servant.

It was on the 14th July, 1877, that Mr.
Russell, verging on his 82nd year, received a
letter from the Rev. A. E. Sevmour, the vicar
of Barnstaple, inviting him to come over and

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 67

help him with a charity sermon, adding, " Mr.
Wallas (the late vicar) tells me you preached
for the Blue-Coat School in this town fifty
years ago, and thinks you would be willing to
do so again next September. This I hope may
be the case, and I know that many of my
parishioners are hoping so too."

Mr. Wallas also informs him that " the re-
ceipts on that occasion were more than they
have ever been since, except once, when the
late Bishop Phillpotts preached ; and then his
lordship's collection only exceeded yours by a
few shillings."

That gifted bishop, it will be remembered,
was second to no man of his day in point of
powerful reasoning and persuasive eloquence ;
he had, too, the advantage of being a bishop —
a dignitarv formerlv so seldom seen in those
parts that the country people, according to
Grose, in their eagerness to. catch sight of him,
left their milk-pans on the fire till the cream
was "smitched," or, perhaps, burned; and
hence the proverb, " The bishop has put his
foot in it."

The public, doubtless, no longer extend to
the clergy addicted to field sports the same
toleration they were wont to show them in
former times. Those times have, indeed, under-
gone a change ; but, with latitudinarianism, if
not infidelitv, rampant on one side, and Ritualism

68 MEMOIR OF

on the other, sapping the very foundations of
our noble Protestant Church, and creating a
widespread menacing cry for its disestabUsh-
ment, it may well be doubted if either the
cause of pure religion or the social welfare
of the country is likely to be benefited by
recent changes.

For instance, there are clergymen amongst
us in the present day notoriously taking the
pay of one Church and doing the work of an-
other. Members they are of a secret society —
Jesuits, it may be, in disguise — who, with
" The Priest in Absolution " in one hand, and
a manual "for the young" in the other, are
inculcating the necessity of confession on
children at the tender age of six or six and
a half years ; thus soiling the infant mind with
the foulest suggestions, outraging the first in-
stincts of English nature, and, as Archbishop
Tait said, " conspiring " against the doctrine,
discipline, and practice of our Reformed Church.

The hunting parson is, at least, no " con-
spirator ; " and if he stands true to the colours
under which he enlisted, conscientiously endea-
vouring to do his duty so far as light is given
him to do it, who shall cast a stone at him
for accepting the exhilarating and innocent
recreation which Nature has given him a taste
for, and which the charms of the country
invite him to enjoy?

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 69

The truth is, the spirit of the Pharisee is
too apt to warp not only our judgment but our
charity ; that of the writer, it may be, on the
subject of enforced confession, and certainly
that of the public on the hunting parson. It is
a common fault with men, as Butler quaintly
says, to

" Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning- those they have no mind to."

If hunting in itself be no sin, then it is an
innocent pastime ; and if so, why, if their sacred
duties be duly fulfilled, should clergymen be
denied its enjoyment? Is it not an act of
tyranny and asceticism to say to them, ''You
are free to boat, shoot, fish, plav cricket or
lawn-tennis, and ride — but not with hounds ;
no, that is a recreation you shall not share with
your fellow men?"

But the French proverb which says, ''Qui
s'exatse s'acciise," must not be forgotten; and
Russell himself would have been the last to
admit the need of apology on such a point.
He would have said what an old country
clergyman, who had been scurrilously attacked
for his love of the chase, said before him :
" I only wish my hours of recreation had all
been spent as happily and as innocently as in
the hunting field ; but point out to me the
moral turpitude of hunting, and I'll never
follow a hound again."

70 MEMOIR OF

To be planted as a curate on ^^60 a year
at George Nympton, and to vegetate like a
cabbage among a scanty population, engaged
chiefly in agricultural labour ; to pass his days
without one out-of-door occupation beyond that
of paying an occasional visit to a suffering
cottager or a busy farmer ; to endure the soli-
tude of an Eremite, compared with the lively,
social scene he had so recently quitted, was a
state of existence so little in accordance with
the stirring aspirations of Russell's mind, that
the want of "something to do" became almost
torture to him.

Against books requiring close study his
whole nature rebelled ; they had too long been
his bane, both at school and at college ; and
rather than be forced to read, he would almost
have endured the pains of purgatory.

The God of Nature would surely never
have given him that innate love for a sylvan
life which possessed him even on entering the
world ; nor would He have blessed him with
those eagle wings which have enabled him so
long to enjoy it, if he had been intended for a
recluse or a mere book-worm ; for, as well
might the spots of the bearded pard be ex-
punged, as that instinct blotted out from Russell's
nature.

He had been but a short time in harness at
George Nympton when he was required by his

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 71

rector, who was also the incumbent of South
Molton, to undertake the weekly duty of that
parish besides that of his own. With this re-
quest he readily complied ; and settling at South
Molton, that being a convenient centre for his
double work, he fulfilled the duties of both
parishes for a considerable period ; and this,
too, with no little amount of additional labour,
but without additional pay.

Nevertheless, had the sphere of his duty
been quadrupled, the parochial work alone
would still have been utterly insufficient to
supply a man of Russell's powers with full
occupation of body and mind. The early
habits of his life, his wondrous energy, his
muscular frame, the strength and endurance of
which no fatigue seemed capable of subduing ;
and, above all, that innate fire — his love, or,
to call it by its right name, his passion for
the chase — combined irresistibly to suggest a
stronger exercise than any he could find from
the due fulfilment of parochial labour, however
great that might be. So to hounds he turned —
the summit to him of earthly enjoyment and
manly recreation.

To hunt the otter, of all beasts of venerie
the least known and most inscrutable, was his
first eft'ort ; and, for that purpose, a scratch lot
of five or six couple of hounds were soon
gathered from his neighbouring friends.

72 MEMOIR OF

If, in adopting that particular recreation, his
object were to keep his muscles in strong play,
and at the same time to delight his eve with
the beauties of Nature, so profusely lavished
on the meads, the moors, and the combes of
that picturesque country, he could scarcely have
made a better choice. But, in all likelihood,
the low condition of his exchequer, coupled
with that innate impulse which prompted him
to long for the company of hounds at all
seasons of the year, had far more to do with
it than a craving for mere bodily exercise or a
love of scenery.

The hounds, it has been said, were a
"scratch lot," and Russell, even then a some-
what experienced amateur, must have felt as
little proud of them as Jack Falstaff did of the
ragged scarecrows before whom he marched so
unwillingly into the town of Coventry. How-
ever, if they had only fulfilled the adage of
" handsome is that handsome does," he cer-
tainly would have been the last man to find
fault with anv amount of mere outward defects
in size, shape, or comeliness of form.

But not so ; there was not a hound amongst
them that would touch a trail ; not one that
would come to a mark and give him the slightest
clue to the whereabouts of the hidden game ;
indeed, both his patience and energy were well-
nigh exhausted by the continuous ditftculty of

w^^^

Otter-hunting.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. ^-^

holding them on a stream. Wander away they
would, into every brake and cover on his line
of march ; and if perchance a fox or a hare
could be raked up, from that moment farewell
to the rioters and the chance of aquatic sport
for the rest of the dav.

" I walked three thousand miles," said Rus-
sell (the country-people must have taken him
for Van Wodenblock), "without hnding an
otter ; and although I must have passed over
scores, I might as well have searched for a
moose-deer."

In failing, however, to make the acquaint-
ance of that animal, his long tramps in quest of
him did not, in one respect, prove altogether
profitless ; for then it was he acquired that rare
knowledge of his countrv which ever since has
remained, like an Ordnance map, imprinted on
his memory. In after years, on many a starless
night, with many a long mile between him and
his kennels, through ravines dark as Erebus,
through fords flooded by storms, over the path-
less moor, by bog, fell, and precipice, that
knowledge did him good service, bringing him
always, like the instinct of the carrier pigeon,
safely to his home.

In clinging to the course of the rivers — a
point of the first necessity in drawing for an
otter — the scenery that met Russell's eye on
every side must have mitigated, to some little

74 MEMOIR OF

extent, the daily chagrin he could not help
feeling at not being able to find the game to
blood his hounds. The farmers, too, that fol-
lowed him, not getting their sport, would be
sure to express their incredulity in the very
existence of the animal ; and the assurance that
" they had never seed no sich varmint up their
bottoms " must have frequently grated on his
ears during that long and profitless walk of
three thousand miles.

Still, he was walking through an Arcadia.
The meads, full of fiowers, rivalling "the mosaic
of a Swiss meadow;" the woods and slopes, wild
as fancy ever painted them ; the hill-tops, clad
with heather, bracken, and golden furze ; the
combes, luxuriant with a variety of ferns of
exquisite form and beauty, the queenly Os-
munda being among the number ; and, to
crown all, even the bogs and brooks, mantling
with the forget-me-not, which, by its soft, tur-
quoise hue, might lead one to imagine their
whole surface was studded with those precious
stones.

Then there was the water-ousel, now dip-
ping, and now running in search of its food,
even while submerged, among the pebbles
and sands of the silvery streams ; and, more
beautiful still, the lustrous kingfisher, glancing
past him like, a living emerald on lightning
wings.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 75

These were treats of Nature which proved
a perpetual feast to Russell's eye ; but the
word "beaten" was not to be found in his
vocabulary ; like Robert Bruce, the oftener he
was defeated, the stronger grew his will to
conquer, and although, as Barbour relates, that
monarch was so hotly pursued by John of Lorn,
his inveterate foe, till the echoes of Scotland
did actually

" . . . . ring-
With the bloodhounds that bayed for her fugitive king;"

still the Bruce persevered, and did conquer in
the end.

So did Russell ; but in a far more peaceful
wav. The change in the tide of his affairs took
place thus : Mr. John IVIorth Woolcombe, of
Ashburv, near Hatherleigh, kept at that time a
fine pack of hounds, averaging twenty-three
inches at the shoulder — foxhounds, in fact, they
were, as high bred as those of Meynell, although
it was his pleasure to pursue with them the
timid hare only.

Russell, happening to meet with a farmer
who kept hounds in the neighbourhood of
Hatherleigh, and hunted indiscriminately fox,
hare, and otter, discovered from him that a
hound called Racer, drafted from Mr. Wool-
combe's pack, had fallen into his hands, and,
moreover, that he was either too fast or too
mute for his own old-fashioned cry.

76 MEMOIR OF

"Now," thought Russell, "here's mv oppor-
tunity ; Racer must at least know what an otter
is, so I'll buy him if I can."

"Will you sell the hound?" inquired he, in
an off-hand wav.

"Certainly," said the farmer, "with all my
heart ; but I must first ask Mr. Woolcombe's
permission to do so."

That permission being readily granted, Rus-
sell paid the farmer a guinea, the price he asked
for him ; and, well pleased with his bargain, he
brought the hound back with him to South
Molton. It turned out, afterwards, however,
that Racer had only once before tasted the
scent of an otter ; still he loved it dearly, and
oft have I heard Russell declare he was the
best otter-hound he ever saw.

Now Racer, as Russell soon found, com-
bined in himself the two-fold qualities especially
required in an otter-hound ; for though mute
before the otter was found, he was nevertheless
a good trail-hound, and a sound, persevering
marker ; the very animal needed to guide and
instruct the unscientific corps under Russell's
command. So from that dav the scratch lot
began to understand what manner of beast it
was they w^ere required to hunt.

Their education may be thus described : As
soon as Racer hits upon a trail, though he does
not speak, his action indicates his love of it so

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL 77

strongly that the rest of the pack no longer
stray from the stream ; then, as the scent im-
proves under the shade of some dark, over-
hanging alder, here and there a hound chimes
in and backs him up ; till at length, attracted
by the eager and persistent mark of their pilot,
tearing at the otter's door and announcing him
"at home," one and all unite in a wild chorus;
and thus by degrees, after a few such lessons,
followed bv an occasional find and kill, Russell
has the satisfaction of seeing the whole lot
changed into a working and useful pack of
otter-hounds.

Hitherto, Russell had himself only seen one
otter killed, and that was by Mr. Cooke, of
Uplowman, near Tiverton ; but, after Racer
became his property, he scored the death of
thirty-five right off the reel ; a boon for which
every son of Zebedee in that county must have
been duly grateful.

During the six vears he kept these otter-
hounds in South Molton, none of which were
ever kennelled, but found each a welcome home
before the fire of an inhabitant, twenty couple
at least passed through his hands, not one of
which could ever be induced to touch the scent
of an otter.

It is quite clear, however, that Russell did
not at first know what age and experience after-
wards taught him, namely, that the scent of the

78 MEMOIR OF

otter is not one to which hounds, of their own
accord, will naturally stoop ; but he might well
have guessed it by the result of that fruitless
leg-labour to which he patiently resigned him-
self for so long a time.

It is a curious fact that the veriest cur, the
first time he crosses the line of a deer, will drop
his nose and carry the scent as instinctively as
a blind puppy will hunt for the teat of its dam.
It requires, too, as every one knows, but little
persuasion to induce hounds to enter at fox and
hare ; simply because those animals are their
natural prey. But not so with the otter, the
scent of which, until he is trained to it, appears
to have little or no attraction for the nose
of a young hound. Indeed, let a whole pack,
however well trained, find an old otter in
moderately strong water, and if left entirely to
themselves, and man's hand and eye give them
no aid, the chances of a kill, except by acci-
dent, will in every case be dead against the
hounds.

It may fairly be inferred, therefore, from the
unreadiness of hounds in first taking to the
scent, as well as from the all but insuperable
difficulty of killing the animal without supple-
mentary aid, that Nature never intended the
otter to be an object of prey for hounds ; and
that, in fact, the sport is to them an artificial
one from beginning to end.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 79

Nevertheless the otter is a really wild beast ;
his efforts to escape, when put down, are mar-
vellously clever ; the hounds become very fond
of the scent, and the sport he shows, if given
fair play, no pen can adequately describe. But
it lasts only for a season of four short months,
and it will be asked what, by way of recreation
and congenial exercise, did Russell find to do
during the other eight of the year.

The answer will, of course, be anticipated.
He hunted whenever he had the chance of
doing so. At that time, and for many years
afterwards, a rare pack of hounds were kept in
the neighbourhood by the Rev. John Froude,
of Knowstone, a man better known, perhaps, in
the western counties, for his utter disregard of
episcopal, and, indeed, of all human authority,
than even for the celebrity of his hounds. With
him and his pack, then, Russell managed to
hunt on every available occasion ; enjoying to
his heart's content both the sport and hospi-
tality which Froude never failed to show^ him,
and tiding over the winter season in a very
happy way.

A fine, wild country was that in w'hich
the vicar of Knowstone took his pastime ; but
especially that portion extending towards East
and West Anstey and MoUand Down ; a land
of heath, bracken, and furze, with moors
" immeasurably spread " in every direction.

8o MEMOIR OF

Knowstone and South Molton, where Russell
then lived, are, more or less, about ten miles
apart ; but as now, so then, whenever the hounds
met, whether on his side of the country or on
the other, neither the most inclement weather
nor the longest distance to cover seemed ever
to cause him a moment's hesitation.

In a letter Russell addressed to an old
friend, he says : —

" My head-quarters at that time were at
South Molton ; and I hunted as many days in
every week as my duties would permit with
John Froude, the well-known vicar of Know-
stone, with whom I was then on very intimate
terms.

"His hounds were something out of the
common ; bred from the old staghounds — light
in their colour, and sharp as needles — plenty of
tongue, but would drive like furies. I have
never seen a better or more killing pack in all
my long life. He couldn't bear to see a hound
put his nose on the ground and ' twiddle his
tail.' ' Hang the brute,' he would say to the
owner of the hounds, ' and get those that can
wind their game when they are thrown off.'

" Froude was himself a first-rate sportsman ;
but always acted on the principle of ' kill un, if
you can ; you'll never see un again.'

" I saw him once shoot a hare sitting near
a farmhouse where his hounds met on the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 8i

following dav ; and where, of course, they did
not find. He hunted on three days of the week,
and shot on the others, when he could walk
most men off their legs. I never saw him with
a rod and line in his hand ; but he was very
expert with nets on land or in water. He was
the most original man I ever met with. He
had an old liver-coloured spaniel called Crack,
a wide ranger, but under perfect command. He
used to sav he could hunt the parish with that
dog from the top of the church tower. You
could hear his view-halloa for miles ; and his
hounds absolutely flew to him wlien they heard
it. Let me add, his hospitality knew no
bounds."

This last tribute to Mr. Froude's memory
will remind many a west-countryman of a story
which, among the hundred and one related of
him, described the reception he is said to have
given to his Diocesan, the late Lord Bishop of
Exeter. Week after week sundry newspapers
had been publishing articles of the most scur-
rilous description, headed " Knowstone again;"
the burden of which reflected on Froude's mode
of life and the lawless acts perpetrated in that
parish. These, of course, never failed to reach
the bishop's eye ; consequently the stout-hearted
prelate, always a friend to be depended on when
his clergy were, as he thought, unfairly assailed,
summoned Mr. Froude to appear at the palace.

82 MEMOIR OF

and explain the grave charges thus pubhcly
brought against him.

But neither did Froude obey the summons,
nor would he give the bishop a chance of wig-
ging him by attending his visitations ; so, like
Mahomet and the mountain, the bishop deter-
mined to go to him ; a course which, short of
legal proceedings, was the only one now open
to him.

Accordingly, on a bitter winter's morning,
the bishop, conveyed by a post-chaise from
Tiverton, arrived at Knowstone vicarage, and
having inquired if Mr. Froude were at home,
was told he was, on hearing which he entered
the house.

After a short delay in the cold guest-chamber,
the bishop was shown into another apartment,
where sat Mr. Froude before a comfortable
fire, his head muffled in flannel and his voice
apparently as hoarse as that of a carrion
crow.

" Fve come to see you, Mr. Froude," com-
menced the bishop, "to inquire if "

" Oh, yes, my lord ; 'tis cold work, sure
enough, travelling over our moors ; but do 'ee
take a glass of hot brandy-and-water, 'twill keep
off the shivers when nought else will."

Then, in spite of the bishop's protestations
that he needed no alcohol, especially ni the
morning, Froude rang the bell and ordered a

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 83

glass of brandy-and-water to be mixed forth-
with, "hot and strong for the bishop."

Again his lordship positively declined the
stimulant, and endeavoured to explain the object
of his visit ; but Froude, apparently not hearing
a word he had uttered, cut him short by saying,
" It's my only doctor, my lord, is a drop of
brandy ; and if I had but taken it when I got
mv chill I shouldn't now be as I be, deaf as
a haddock, and nursing this fire like an old
woman."

The bishop would hear no more ; but making
him a grave bow, took his leave, entered his
carriage, and returned whence he came. In
ten minutes from that time, so goes the story,
Froude was seen to mount his horse and trot
away in company with his hounds.

"I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me."

Russell, however, who knew Froude's sayings
and doings better than any man living, and
was wont, like Yorick, " to set the table on a
roar" when throwing his tongue on that lively
subject, maintained that if the bishop had in-
vaded Froude's domain a dozen times the result
would have been precisely the same ; but that
he only went once to Knowstone, and then,
being admitted for a few minutes, beat a hasty
retreat, and escaped from the house much faster
than he entered it.

84 MEMOIR OF

This is the story as Russell told it : —

"The bishop at length was determined to
have an interview with Froude, and as his
lordship was staying at the time with, I believe,
that pattern of a country gentleman, Tom Carew,
of Collipriest, he ordered a pair of horses from
Cannon and started for Knowstone with that
object in view.

" By some intuition, however, peculiar to
himself, Froude suspected that such an event
might occur, and at once set to work to frustrate
the bishop's design. He stationed a signalman
within hail of his house, on the only road
leading to it from Tiverton, giving him orders, if
he saw a chaise and pair travelling towards the
vicarage, to hasten thither and sound the alarm.

" Accordingly, when the bishop did appear,
Froude and his household were not only
apprised of his approach, but duly prepared
for his reception.

"'Can I see Mr. Froude?' inquired his
lordship, in that mild, measured tone which he
habitually adopted when he meant to carry his
point. ' Be good enough to say the Bishop of
Exeter wishes to have a few words with him.' "

"'Please to walk in, my lord,' replied the
old housekeeper, Jane, who had gone to the
door, and would have gone to the stake to
serve her master. ' Mr. Froude is at home, but
is up abed wi' some ailment or other.

> ) )

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 85

" ' Nothing serious, I hope ? ' said the bishop,
taking a seat in the state apartment ; and if
so, I daresay he would not object to see me
at his bedside.'

"Jane paused for a moment, and then, with
some hesitation, rephed, ' Perhaps not, my lord :
leastwise, if you bean't afeered o' going there.
'Tis a fairer o' some soart, but I can't mind
what the doctor call'th it.'

" The bishop cocked his ear and looked
uneasy. ' A fever, did you say ? Rheumatic,
perhaps, from exposure to wet ? '

" ' No, no ; I've got that myself bad enough.
'Tis something a deal worse, I reckon.'

" ' Not scarlet fever, I hope ? '

The housekeeper shook her head despond-
ingly. ' Worse than that, my lord.'

"'Typhus?' inquired the bishop, no longer
able to hide his look of alarm.

" ' Iss, that's it ; seem'th to me that's what
the doctor ca'd it. 'Tis a whisht job, fai.'

" The bishop clutched his hat, and with
little ceremony took his departure ; and although
he announced his intention of repeating his
visit at a more convenient season, he never
again set foot in the parish of Knowstone.

"When the bishop had fairly disappeared,"
Russell adds, " Froude put on his long gaiters
and went out hunting for the rest of the
day."

86 MEMOIR OF

" I told 'ee so, Jack ; I know'd he'd come,"
he said to Russell the first time he met him
after that event. " But there, he's never likely
to come again ; the air of Knowstone's too
keen for him, I reckon."

Though an athlete in intellect, the bishop,
according to Russell, was no match for Froude
in those minor tactics, the success of which
depended on manoeuvre and finesse ; in that
line he could have beaten Machiavelli himself.
His lordship, it is said, met Froude one day
with a greyhound, commonly known in Devon-
shire as "a long-dog," walking by his side:
''And pray, Mr. Froude," said the bishop, with
a courteous, but restrained air, " what manner
of dog may you call that?"

" Oh ! that's what we call a lang-dog, my
lord ; and if yen was on'y to shak' yeur appern
to un, he'd go like a dart."

The idea of that dignified and ceremonious
prelate shaking his apron, like an old woman,
to frighten the dog, is so ludicrous that, if it
did not beget even in his eye a twinkle of
mirth, he must have struggled hard to
restrain it.

Russell's anecdotes of Froude would fill a
volume ; but to produce a tithe of them in
these pages would be to give the latter undue
prominence in the present memoir. Besides,
however pointed anecdotes may be if told by

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 87

a racy tongue like Russell's, still, when written,
they are very apt to meet the reader's eye
with a lifeless and blunted effect.

There can be little doubt that the friendship
and example of a man like the vicar of Know-
stone did not only influence Russell at the very
outset of his professional career, but, in all
likelihood, biassed the whole course of his after
life. To a young man, socially inclined and
fond of hunting, the attraction of Fronde's
company must have been irresistible ; for
Froude was witty, original, hospitable ; and,
moreover, exercised a kind of mysterious power,
such as men of strong will are known to
possess, over those with whom he associated.
Above all, he had a crack pack of hounds,
and was himself, as Russell described him, a
" first-rate sportsman."

This rare quality, had he possessed no other
fascination, would have been alone sufficient to
charm Russell's heart ; ay, and to lead him, as
it did from that day forth, into a willing and
life-long captivity.

CHAPTER V.

The Teignbridge Cricket Club and the Party at
Stover — Mr. George Templer and the "Let-'em-
Alones" — The "Bold Dragoon," "Ninkv," and the
Rev. Henry Taylor.

Whate'er the strang-er's caste or creed,

Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner;
He found a stable for his steed.

And welcome for himself, and dinner.

WiNTHROP M. Praed.

During the next six years of his hfe, that is,
from 1819 to 1825, Russell still continued to
reside at South Molton ; doing his work as a
curate to the satisfaction of his parishioners ;
and, when off duty, rarely missing a day in the
winter season, either with the hounds of his at-
tractive neighbour, Mr. Froude, of Knowstone,
or with the far-famed pack of Mr. Templer, of
Stover ; where, come when he would, he was at
all times sure to hnd a heartv welcome and
the best of company.

Those six years may fairly be termed the
period of his final apprenticeship in woodcraft ;
for, soon afterwards we find him in the respon-
sible position of an M.F.H., playing, it is true, a
somewhat uphill game, but still adhering with
unflinching tenacity to that sylvan groove which

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 89

Nature apparently had formed him to fill, and
from which he never deflected throughout the
long course of an eventful life.

During the summer season, however, another
out-of-door recreation, besides that of otter-
hunting, appears to have provided him, so long
as he indulged in it, with strong exercise and a
pleasant pastime. It was the game of cricket ;
which, although established at Lord's by the
Marylebone Club so far back as 1787, had taken
many a year to travel into Devonshire, where
it is doubtful if it became generally played
before 1823 or 1824. The up-and-down char-
acter of the country, in which it would be
difficult in scores of parishes to hnd a perfectly
level held, might have been some reason for its
long-deferred introduction into that county. Be
that as it may, there are no records to show
that the noble game of cricket became an in-
stitution in Devon before the i8th of May,
1824, when a club was formally established at
Teignbridge, that locality being admirably
adapted for the purpose, the play-ground being
level as a die, and conveniently near to the
houses of several of its most prominent
members.

Russell attended the first meeting, held in a
" linhay " or cowshed, on that occasion ; played
in the first game ; and, with two of his brothers,
was constituted an honorary member of the

go MEMOIR OF

club on its natal day. But whatever his quali-
fications might have been, it cannot be said that
he afterwards became an ardent cricketer ; nor
is it related of him by his contemporaries that
he ever distinguished himself, either as a good
"field," batsman, or bowler. His thoughts, in
fact, were still on hounds intent ; the ruling
passion had sole possession of him, and he could
no more have devoted his energy to cricket
than to a game of marbles.

The Rev. Henry Taylor, of West Ogwell,
the Rev. John Templer and his elder brother,
Mr. George Templer, of Stover, were members ;
the former having been chosen as president,
and the latter as vice-president of the newly-
formed Club. Mr. Templer, a gentleman of
brilliant intellect and most charming manner,
had for some time previously established at
Stover a pack of dwarf fox- hounds, averaging
nineteen inches at the shoulders, with which he
hunted, when he had the luck to find him, the
real wild article ; but, wlien a blank was appre-
hended, a bagman, which, always at hand, was
turned down in view of the hounds.

The system was a novel one, hitherto un-
practised in this or any other country ; but the
sport shown and the hard riding it gave rise to,
owing to the habit of saving the fox alive, when
the hounds had fairly run up to him, will be
remembered in the county so long as Heytor

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 91

Rock looks down on any one survivor of
Templer's friends. At least a score of foxes
were kept within two spacious yards expressly
for this purpose ; and as they were attached,
each one to its separate coop, by a long chain
revolving on a swivel, they were able to take
plenty of exercise and keep themselves in good
wind ; the gallop of the animals, like that of a
horse in a circus, being sometimes accelerated
by a light tandem-whip handled by a groom.
Of the stoutness of one, yclept the " Bold Dra-
goon," I have heard both Tempter and Taylor
relate some stirring tales ; he had been turned
out thirty-six times, had generally led them a
long dance, and never failed to enjoy a fresh
rabbit for supper on safely returning to his
kennel home.

When Mr. Tempter parted with his pack,
in 1826, a lot of the larger hounds went to the
Rev. H. F. Yeatman, of Stock House, Dorset-
shire ; while the lesser, including the far-famed
" Let-'em-alones " (the bag-fox pack), were dis-
persed throughout the country ; Sir Henry
Carew, Mr. Hammett Drake, Mr. Worth, of
Worth, Mr. Hole, of Georgeham, and others,
having purchased the whole of them in separate
lots. From these precious relics, as they were
speedily discovered to be, many couples were
subsequently secured and brought together
by the united efforts of Russell, and his

92 MEMOIR OF

coadjutor, Mr. Arthur Harris, of Hayne ; and
formed the nucleus of that famous pack which
showed such unexampled sport over the Tetcott
and Pencarrow countries in 1828-30 ; a wild
moorland district extending from Torrington to
Bodmin, in Cornwall, unquestionably the finest
hunting-ground in the West of England.

Thirty odd years have drifted away on the
stream of time since the genial and big-hearted
George Tempter was carried to his last ances-
tral home at Teigngrace ; but it will interest
the reader to know something more of the man
who is acknowledged to have been Russell's
chief Gamaliel, and whose hunting-horn, as Mr.
Harris tells us, " passed so worthily to his apt
and favourite pupil."

Tempter's hospitality at Stover literally knew
no bounds. The company, too, he selected
for his guests were for the most part men of
standing in the county — Worthies of Devon —
the bare fact of their being sportsmen, as
well as gentlemen, being the *' open sesame "
to Tempter's heart.

"A Party at Stover in 1823," written in
elegant verse by the gifted host, includes, for
instance, the names of no less than four guests
who were subsequently Masters of Foxhounds
in his own or the adjoining county of Cornwall:
namely, those of Sir William Salusbury Tre-
lawny ; Mr. John King, of Fowelscombe ; Mr.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 93

John Crocker Bulteel, of Flete, Russell's first
antagonist at Plympton School ; and that of
John Russell, then, however, a Master of Otter-
hounds only.

Sitting at Templer's ample board, it may
well be imagined how Russell, if no wine-bibber,
still drank in and enjoyed, to his heart's con-
tent, those racy draughts of hunting lore, of
which his host possessed so copious a supply;
and which he (Russell) profited by so largely in
after years. He must have felt, as he would
himself have said, "up to his hocks in clover"
among such company.

Templer's power over fox-hounds, governed
more by kindness than the lash, delighted his
eyes ; so unique was the system of discipline
and control with which they were managed,
even in the presence of a fox. " His mode of
tuition," writes Mr. Harris, "was so perfect
that each hound comprehended every inflexion
of his voice ; every note of his horn was intelli-
gible to them, and conveyed a full meaning ;
and to the wave of his hand an instant obedi-
ence was given that required neither rate nor
sterner discipline to urge. He was ably
seconded by his friends and assistants, the late
Mr. Harry Taylor and Mr. Russell ; and perhaps
there never was exhibited a greater perfection
of hunting, of scientific control over hounds,
and of skill in eliciting their utmost powers

94 MEMOIR OF

of chase and hunting, than was afforded by
the estabhshment of Stover, under the super-
intendence of this memorable triumvirate."

When a bagman was about to be turned
out it was always done in view of the hounds,
Templer standing among them with his hunt-
ing-watch open in hand ; nor would a hound
attempt to stir till fair law had been allowed,
and the last word of the signal, " One, two,
away ! " bid them to the chase. A hound,
called " Guardsman," had become so very know-
ing at the work that, instead of looking after
the fox, he kept his eye fixed on the watch ;
and, the moment he saw^ the case closed,
away he went, like an arrow from a bow.

The business then was to save the fox alive ;
and, whether he were a wild fox or a bagman,
such w^as the hard riding and such the obedience
of the hounds to a rate, that, nine times out of
ten, the animal was picked up before them, with-
out a hair of his skin being broken. Blood was
a finale to which, at home, they were never
treated, and yet a harder-driving lot never
entered a cover. But as Nimrod, after his
visit at Stover, tells us, *'To show that Mr.
Tempter's hounds can kill foxes when suffered
to do so, it may not be amiss to mention that
whilst they were at North Molton, for the
purpose of hunting alternate days w4th Mr.
Fellowes's or Sir Arthur Chichester's hounds,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 95

at the Chulmleigh Club, they killed three brace
of foxes in four days,"

And those foxes, be it observed, were the
wild moorland tartars, bred in the rough country
surrounding Exmoor.

Under a tutor, then, so well qualified to
instruct him in the countless mysteries of the
" noble science," it would, indeed, have been a
wonder if Russell, so fashioned bv Nature for
the chase, had not fulfilled to the utmost the
expectations with which he was then credited
by so able and experienced a master. That he
did not disappoint him, the world will bear
strong witness in the pupil's favour.

Nimrod, who was fortunate in meeting both
the Rev. Henry Taylor and Russell at Stover,
has left us the following brief sketch of those
two men : —

" There is one gentleman who is a constant
attendant on Air. Templer's hounds, a very fine
horseman over a country, and, report says,
quite the clipper of the West. This is the Rev.
Henry Taylor. There is another gentleman of
the same cloth, the Rev. John Russell (but much
better known by the name of * Jack Russell '),
who, though he resides about thirty miles from
him, hunts a good deal with Mr. Templer, and
who also stands high among the Devonshire
bruisers. This gentleman finds hunting so
conducive to his health, that with stag-hounds.

g6 MEMOIR OF

fox-hounds, harriers, and otter-hounds, he con-
trives to enjoy it all the year round. The last-
mentioned pack are kept by himself ; and he has
killed the almost incredible number of twenty-
five otters in the last two summers, for which
he should receive the thanks of the fish ! Each
of these gentlemen spent the evening with us
at Mr. Tempter's, and added much to its
conviviality and pleasure."

Where all were welcome, it would be almost
invidious to single out one as the most favoured
and constant guest of the Stover party ; but, in
truth, Henry Taylor of Ogwell — the boy known
at Eton as Ninth Harry — was that man. But
for him, on his famous horse Nunky, the career
of the " Bold Dragoon " would have been cut
short very early in the day, and his dark hide
converted into "a hundred tatters of brown;"
for a finer horseman or a nobler man never
followed a hound ; and he it was who almost
invariably contrived to save the life of that
gallant fox.

On one occasion, however, both he and
Nunky nearly came to serious grief, and nar-
rowly escaped with their lives. The anecdote
was first told me by Mr. George Tempter, and
afterwards confirmed by Taylor himself ; w^hose
natural modesty and true nobility of soul, though
I had the honour of knowing him intimately
for nearly a quarter of a century, would never

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 97

permit him to tell me a tale in which he
himself figured as the hero.

The *' Bold Dragoon " had been turned out
in the Yale of Teigngrace ; and crossing the
River Teign, then flooded by heavy rains, was
leading the pack at a rattling pace in the direc-
tion of Ugbrook Park, when the whole field
were brought to a sudden check at sight of the
" brimming river."

The ford, known to a few, was now invisible,
and the only bridge, more than a mile away,
seemed too far to be available. What then was
to be done ? The fate of the " Bold Dragoon "
was a certainty, if there were no one up to rate
the hounds ; and his Colossus mare was scarcely
more valued by Templer than that fox.

''Go for Jew's bridge," shouted a cautious
member of the hunt ; "that's our onlv chance
for catching the hounds : " and away went the
field helter-skelter in that direction ; every man
of them except Taylor.

Seeing a flight of rails close to the river
bank, and concluding they were placed there to
prevent cattle from crossing the ford, Taylor
rode his horse straight at them, thinking to land
him,' perhaps, up to his girths on dropping into
the stream. But, alas ! the spot proved to be
one of the deepest pools in the Teign river : the
horse and rider disappeared ; but the latter,
having been an expert swimmer at Eton, soon

H

gS MEMOIR OF

came to the surface, and, striking out vigor-
ously, gained the opposite bank in safety. But
now, great was his dismay on looking round, to
find that Nunky was nowhere to be seen ; not a
wave nor a gurgle indicated his whereabouts
below ; and, for some seconds, Taylor felt assured
the horse had been stunned, and had gone down
like a stone to the bottom.

Happily he was wrong ; as the hoofs first,
and then the legs of the animal, gradually
appeared above water ; and then, as the body
grounded about twenty yards below on the
gravelly ford, which Taylor had failed to hit, he
discovered that his horse's fore-legs had been
caught by the reins, and that every time he
struck out he jerked his own head under water.

To plunge again into the whirling stream, to
unclasp his knife, cut the reins, and take a pull
at Nunky's head, was the work of a second,
when the brave beast jumped on his legs, and
after a few sobs to clear out his pipes, Taylor
vaulted into the saddle and dashed off in
pursuit of the hounds.

A fever he had caught at Eton had utterly
destroyed the hair of his head, and consequently
he always wore a sandy-coloured wig, made by
that eminent artist, Mr. Piper, of Exeter. His wig
and hat, however, were carried to sea, while he
was discovered scudding away under bare poles,

"Taking hedg-es for billows and mountains for seas;"

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 99

nor, like the moss-trooper of old, did he slacken
his rein or "stint to ride," till he had picked
up the fox and bagged him alive.

I drew the story out of the dear old fellow-
over a bottle of port wine in his sanctum at
South Poole, when he added, " It's quite true,
but Templer didn't tell you all. On crossing
the Newton road I met an old woman, and
tossing her a shilling she handed me her blue
flannel apron which I wrapped round my head,
and thus turbaned, rode like a grand Turk to
the end of the run."

Such was the man and such the horse of
whose deed Templer wrote in a strain of the
truest admiration : —

"Fearless and first Ninth Harry urg-ed his course,
Charging- the fences with resistless force ;
Poor Nunky pays for all, a friend indeed
So g"ood a Nunky proves in time of need."

That uncle was Mr. Edward Cooke, who,
sometime Under-Secretary of State for Ireland
during the administration of Lord Castlereagh,
gave him the horse.

But to return to the Teignbridge Cricket
Club : that Russell took no active interest in
the game mav be inferred from the fact that,
notwithstanding the high popularity to which
the Club soon attained in the county, he ceased
to be a member of it early in the day. The
ground, it is true, was at a long distance from

100 MEMOIR OF

his home at South Molton, some thirty-five or
forty miles away ; but had he really loved the
game, that distance would certainly not have
been an impediment to which he would have
given a moment's thought.

The Club, however, had already done him
good service ; it had brought him into friendly
association not only w^ith the Stover party, but
with many influential men connected with that
side of the county. At the death of one of
its best plavers, and certainly one of its most
valued members, the Rev. Henry Taylor, his
bat, carrying like Curius Dentatus the marks of
many a hard-fought tussle on its battered front,
was presented to the Club by his late widow,
and being elevated to a niche of honour in the
banqueting-room, received from the pen of a
loving friend the following inscription : —

Hail, honoured relic of the manly fame

By Taylor won at every noble game !

Some g-entle stream may haply mourn the tree*

That decked its marg-in, ere it fell for thee ;

But deeper far Teignbridge laments the day,

When that stout arm was turned again to clay :

Relic, alas ! thy gladsome work is done,

Death is the bowler, and the game is won :

But rest thou here, still eloquent to tell

The grief of those who loved the man so well.

E. W. L. Davies. .

* It may not be generally known that cricket-bats are made from
the willow tree.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. loi

The hunting men, however, with whom
Russell associated at Teignbridge, brilliant riders
and first-class sportsmen as a few of them
were, constituted but a small portion of the
party who met at Stover to enjoy Mr. Temp-
ler's hospitality, and hunt with his hounds.
The following gentlemen, fellow-sportsmen with
Russell, the remembrance of whom will long be
cherished in the county of Devon, are notably
mentioned in the spirited verses to which
allusion has already been made.

First on the list comes Mr. John King, of
Fowelscombe, "John King of the West," an
able sportsman, who, according to Russell, knew
the habits of a fox better than most men of his
day. After hunting a portion of Mr. Pode's
country in Devon, Mr. King became Master
of the Hambledon Hounds, and subsequently,
while following Mr. Trelawny's pack, died in
the saddle on Dartmoor.

2. Mr. John Crocker Bulteel, of Flete, the
originator of the Lyneham Pack, afterwards so
famous under the mastership of Mr. Trelawny.
Besides being a keen sportsman, Mr. Bulteel's
genius was one of the highest order, and the
sallies of wit, which, like the sparkling brooks
of his native country, flowed so pleasantly from
his tongue, must have made the very rafters of
Stover ring with merriment. In such company
whether in the field or at "table-board,"

102 ■ MEMOIR OF

good-fellowship and sport must have reigned
supreme.

3; Mr. Thomas Bulteel, the " spruce little
cousin " of Mr. J. C. Bulteel, a ligUt-weight and
a bold rider, whom, when hounds were running
hard, no timber could stop, no fence dismay.

4. Mr. Paul Ourry Treby, of Goodamoor,
the well-known " fox-hunter, rough and ready,"
a classic scholar, and a rare specimen of a
high-minded English gentleman.

5. Mr. Salusbury Trelawny, afterwards Sir
William S. Trelawny, a lineal descendant of
Jonathan Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol, who,
with six other prelates, was sent to the Tower
by King James the Second ; an act that gave
rise to the patriotic song still sung by Cornish-
men with unabated enthusiasm, a verse of
which runs thus :

"And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die ?
Then twenty thousand Cornishmen
Shall know the reason why ! "

Of Sir William and a hound of his, called
Whirligig, Mr. Arthur Harris, of Hayne, records
the following interesting anecdote : —

" According to tradition Whirligig was an
extraordinary hound in every way, and it is said
that he could kill a fox single-handed. Certain
it is that both the hound and his master per-
formed feats that old men still love to chronicle.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 103

On one occasion, the story goes, Salusbury
Trelawnv had brought his fox, late in the day
and nearly at nightfall, to a point on the Tamar
below Newbridge. The river was swollen and
rapid, and it was judged impossible for a fox to
have swum such a distance in so rapid a
stream. Salusbury Trelawny thought otherwise,
so did Whirligig, and neither were of a temper
to be diverted from their purpose. Getting into
a small boat, he rowed over to the other side,
sitting in the stern and holding the bridle of his
hunter, Cattern or Lufra, lightly in hand, wiiile
the mare and the hound — both animals attached
in a singular degree to their chivalrous master
— crossed together, swimming side by side.
Not a hound followed. Whirligig recovered the
line on the other side, killed the half-drowned
fox, and master, hound, and horse, with the
head and brush, returned the way they came.
Brave * Old Sarum ! ' he was indeed a glorious
fellow : he and Newton Fellowes were samples
of the ^ genus homo' not easily to be found in
a modern dav."

In addition to the names already mentioned,
nine other guests are severally described as
forming the

" . . . . party assembled at Stover

To hunt in the morning, and feast when 'twas over."

They were the Rev. Edward Clarke, of St.
Dominick, Mr. George Leach, the Rev. John

104 REV. JOHN RUSSELL

Templer, Mr. William and Erving Clark, of
Buckland Tout-Saints, Mr. Charles Gandy, Mr.
Henry Twysden, R.N., Mr. John Lyne Tem-
pler, of Highland House, and Captain J.
Avern, R.N.

Alas ! to Death's grim Ferryman all, in-
cluding the subject of this memoir, have been
summon-^d to pay their last copper !

CHAPTER VI.

He Falls i\ Love — Rides bv Night to Bath — His
Grotesque Mount in Milsom Street — Is Married,
AND removes to Iddesleigh — Keeps Foxhounds,
and forms an xAlliaxce with Mr. C. A. Harris — ■
Difficulties with Fox-killers.

Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh I wiiat were man ? a world without a sun !

Campbell.

Towards the end of 1825, or the beginning
of 1826, an event affecting the happiness of
Russell's life, at home and abroad, bid fair,
at least, for a time, to imperil the devotion
which, up to this period, he had so exclusively
shown to the sylvan Queen, who beyond all
doubt hitherto had reigned in his heart with-
out a rival.

But strong and enduring as the bonds were
in which the goddess retained her willing cap-
tive, the time had now arrived when they were
destined to prove but as green withs com-
pared with those of Venus, whose power both
the gods and men have alike shown to be
irresistible.

About this time he met with a lady whose
attractions at once arrested the current of his

io6 MEMOIR OF

thoughts, and brought him on bended knee to
sue for her hand. That lady was Miss Penelope
Incledon Bury, the daughter of Admiral and
Mrs. Bury, of Dennington House, near Barn-
staple. Both the father and mother being pure
North-Devoners, and claiming descent from
two good old county families, they were proud
of the " haveage " to which they belonged.
Nor could they have taken exception to
Russell's pedigree ; he himself being a descen-
dant of the Russells of Kingston-Russell ; for,
at the time of the Sampford Courtenay riots
in the West, Lord Russell, then at Exeter,
appointed one of his own relatives to preach
against "the old religion;" and from him came
the Russells who have remained in the county
ever since.

Mrs. Bury, the mother of Penelope, was of
the knightly family of Chichester, of Hall, whose
pedigree is chronicled by John Prince, the
worthy Vicar of Berry Pomeroy.

If Russell, then, had an eye to a "lass wi' a
lang pedigree " — a point he would have con-
sidered of the first importance in selecting a
horse or a hound — he could scarcely have made
a better choice. But it is obvious that other
and broader views must have influenced his
judgment in this matter ; for a more sensible,
warm-hearted, generous woman than Penelope
Bury proved herself to be, never breathed the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 107

breath of life. Russell must have stood an
inch higher in stature when he found himself
first favourite for so fair a prize — the only real
prize in life he may, with truth, be said to
have ever won.

But the event should not be anticipated.
When Mr. George Tempter, of Stover, parted
with his big pack to the Rev. H. F. Yeatman,
in the early part of 1826, Russell and Templer
paid him a visit at Stock House, near Sher-
borne ; when, under his inauguration, the Black-
moor Vale country was first established. To
entertain his friends, whether indoors or out of
doors — a felicitous gift he possessed beyond
ordinary mortals — Mr. Yeatman ordered out his
own famous pack of harriers (which, by-the-bye,
were dwarf fox-hounds, as perfect in shape as
they were in work), and showed them a capital
day's sport ; when the hare was sinking, Russell,
to save her, put his horse at a chained gate,
rode over it, and picked up the hare in front
of the hounds.

Nearly fifty years after that event, Mr.
Digby of Sherborne Castle, finding himself in
company with Russell at, I believe. Lord Polti-
more's house in Dorsetshire, asked him if he
remembered the first time they met in the
hunting-field ?

" Perfectly well," replied Russell ; "it was
w4th dear old Yeatman's hounds in 1826 ; the

io8 MEMOIR OF

first time Templer and I stayed with him at
Stock House."

"Quite true," replied Mr. Digby ; "you
rode over a chained gate, and took up the
hare before me. I could have shot vou on the
spot."

" You'd have spoiled some sport if you
had," said Russell not a little amused that the
incident, and youthful jealousy it had given rise
to, should be remembered after the lapse of so
many years.

That very night, after the dinner and day's
sport had been duly discussed, Russell mounted
a hack, one he had brought with him from
South Molton, and, starting from Stock, he
shaped his course, as he best could, directly for
Bath, hoping to reach that city, a distance of
some fifty odd miles, before the inns and stables
were all closed for the night. At Warminster,
however, he found it expedient to leave his
own horse behind him and hire a fresh one,
the landlord of the principal inn being quite
ready to supply him vi^ith " a rare goer," which
he averred " would carry him like an infant in
a cradle, and cover the ground in less than two
hours."

"Bring him out, then," said Russell, "as
quickly as you can ; that will suit me exactly."

The night was now pitch dark ; not a moon
nor a star in the sky ; not a ray of light, except

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. icg

that from a dim horn-lantern, enabHng Russell
to distinguish the head from the tail of the
horse on which he was about to mount. How-
ever, he was soon in the saddle ; the beast, too,
was a willing one, being probably, like John
Gilpin's horse,

" • • . • rig-ht gflad to miss
The lumb'ring' of the wheels ; "

but never before nor since did Russell undergo
such a bumping as on the ribs of that War-
minster hack.

On his arrival at Bath, long after midnight,
happily for him one hostelry still remained
open, the White Lion Inn ; where, finding he
could obtain a bed for himself and a stall for
his horse, he rested for the night. But when
he quitted the animal and committed him to
the charge of the ostler, such was the darkness
still prevailing that Russell knew no more about
the shape, appearance, and colour of the beast
than he did about the Greek horse that entered
Troy. He might have known, however, that
the heroes inside that wooden steed must have
had a rough time of it if its movements were
not easier than those of his Warminster hack.

" Feed him well," said Russell to the ostler,
as he groped his way out of the yard ; " and
don't forget to bring him in the morning
to No. 9, Milsom Street, exactly at eleven
o'clock."

no MEMOIR OF

The Pump Room books of that day, if in
existence, would still show the names and
numbers of the visitors who were then occupying
No. 9 in that fashionable locality ; they were no
other than Admiral, Mrs., and Miss Penelope
Bury, from Dennington House, North Devon.

Here, then, was the guiding star which had
led Russell to abandon both friends and hounds
at Stock ; and in spite of the gloom, had lighted
his path with a hopeful ray to the city of
waters, at which we now hnd him safely arrived.
He had promised Miss Bury to ride with her
in the morning, and of course took care to be
in attendance at No. 9 in good time before the
horses were ordered and the lady prepared to
start. Other cavaliers, however, had been
invited to join the party ; notably, the Rev.
Alexander Baillie, a hue, handsome young
fellow, as agreeable as he was good-looking,
and a perfect beau ; also the long-lamented
John Bayly, a finished horseman, and one of
the best men across country in all England ;
besides one or two more, mounted on steeds
well-bred and with skins glossy as satin itself.

Miss Bury, too, was now in the saddle ; and,
but for a short delay, occasioned by the non-
arrival of Russell's horse, the whole cavalcade
were prepared to start at the appointed time.
At length the ostler made his appearance,
hurrying forward, as he best could, an animal

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. iii

that seemed only fit for a dog-kennel ; he was

black as ink, had no hair on mane or tail,

and scarcely an ounce of iiesh on his bones ;
for, literally,

" His strutting- ribs on both sides show'd
Like furrows he himself had plow'd ;
For underneath the skirt of pannel,
'Twixt every two there was a channel."

Above all, an old-fashioned post-boy's saddle,
brass-mounted and secured by a huge crupper
to his rat-tail, formed a conspicuous feature on
the garran's back ; and that, coupled with his
poster-like appearance, was quite enough to stir
up first a titter, then a roar of laughter, as it
quickly did, among the lookers-on.

Never, perhaps, was lover placed in a more
trying predicament ; the shafts of ridicule being
the most fatal of all weapons to a man bidding
for promotion, if he is made the unhappy butt
at which they are aimed. Many a hero, with
courage enough to head a Balaclava charge and
face the deadliest foe, would have shuddered to
mount that beast under existing circumstances,
and would certainly have darted oft in search
of another charger less picturesque in his points,
and more befitting the light brigade assembled
in Milsom Street on that eventful morn. Com-
paring their steeds with his own, he might well
have thought that the companionship of such a
Rosinante would not only compromise his own

112 MEMOIR OF

dignity, but outrage the feelings of his gay and
well-mounted comrades.

But Russell had no such apprehension ; he
stood his ground and joined heartily in the
laugh ; told them of the landlord's craft at
Warminster, and his own inability to detect it,
owing to the Stygian darkness that prevailed at
the time and throughout his journey. He then
sprang into the saddle ; and by him at least,
if not by one other of the party, the quaint
figure and accoutrements of his horse were
speedily forgotten ; nor for one moment did
they appear to trouble his thoughts during the
rest of the day — a day he loved to record as
one among the happiest, if not the happiest, of
his long life.

But if, on this memorable visit to Bath,
there were other gallants in the held better
mounted and better equipped than the Devon-
shire parson, certain it is that he, like Ulysses
of old, held his own against all comers ; for,
on the 30th of May, 1826, the fair Penelope
honoured him with her hand, and converted him
thenceforth into a happy Benedict. Soon after
this auspicious event, he retired from the charge
of George Nympton and South Molton parishes ;
and, after devoting but a brief period to the
usual hymeneal holiday and its attendant mys-
teries, he removed with his handsome bride to
Iddesleigh, near Hatherleigh ; and, his father

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 113

being the rector, he accepted the curacy of that
parish under him.

There is a story current, however, that
before he finally quitted South Molton, he and
Mrs. Russell attended divine service at that
church, and occupied, of course, a pew together.
Now at that time there lived at Whitechapel
Farm, near South Molton, a celebrated character
called John Sanger, an eccentric, hard-riding
yeoman, who, although weighing eighteen stone
and mounted on a thirteen-hand Exmoor pony,
had more than once beaten over the moor Mr.
Newton Fellowes, the great Squire of Eggesford,
whose hunters were notably well bred and the
talk of all the country. Sanger belonged to
Bishop's Nympton parish ; but, on that Sunday,
when Russell and his bride made their appear-
ance at South Molton Church, he occupied a
seat at a little distance off, but exactly fronting
their pew.

Immediately on coming out of church he
marched up to Mrs. Russell, and with hat in
hand, and a profound bow, he said :

" Good morning to you, ma'am ; I have never
seen in all my life such a fine woman as you
are. But you have spoiled my devotions ; for I
couldn't take my eyes off you all church time."

This, beyond all doubt, was no mere com-
pliment ; but the honest expression of a plain,
out-spoken man.

114

MEMOIR OF

It was but a short time after his marriage
with Miss Bury that Russell continued to keep
otter-hounds, for on removing to Iddesleigh,
the proceeds of wiiich living his father had
assigned to him, he found himself in the centre
of a country so gloriously wild, and so adapted
to fox-hunting, that he determined at once to
elevate his standard and follow that sport in
preference to the other. Accordingly, in the
autumn of 1826, when the woodlands were
changing colour and draft-hounds their kennels,
Russell, gathering together about ten or twelve
couple from various sources, but chiefly from the
relics of the famous Stover pack, entered on
his first campaign in the wilds of Hatherleigh,
"hunting," as he says, "anything he could find
around his own garden ; " for the bounds of
his maiden country, if such it could be called,
were at first woefully confined to a very limited
area.

The Rev. W. H. Karslake, of Dolton, appears
to have been the only gentleman who, at that
time, kept hounds within a short distance of
Iddesleigh; but as they were harriers, it occurred
to Russell that the enjoyment of the nobler
sport might well be secured in so inviting a
field, not only without prejudice to that gentle-
man, but with the concurrence, and, as he hoped,
the goodwill of the two neighbouring Masters
of Foxhounds, the Hon. Newton Fellowes and

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 115

the Rev. Peter Gliibb. The latter had for manv
years kept and hunted a very killing pack near
Little Torrington ; while the former, who lived
at Eggesford, occupied, with his grand pack of
foxhounds, a rough and extensive countrv, over
which, by virtue of his manorial possessions, he
claimed, if he did not exercise, the almost feudal
rights of a baron of the fifteenth century. For
though,

"Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have
his way."

The kennels of both these packs w^ere within
ten miles of Iddesleigh, and nearly equidistant
from that place ; consequently, in so circum-
scribed a country, over which he might almost
have flown a paper kite, the prospect of pursuing
the w^ild animal with success would indeed have
been a hopeless one. It would also have involved
him in endless strife, for he must inevitably
have encroached on the conventional rights of
those gentlemen, and aroused their jealousy and
ill-will at every turn. Iddesleigh, if he did so,
he was well aware w^ould be looked upon as
the centre of a civil war, and he as a kind of
Rob Roy — a marauder and freebooter, who, by
violating a law strict as that of the Medes and
Persians, w^ould be entitled to no quarter under
such outrageous circumstances.

To obtain, then, an enlargement of his too
narrow bounds — just a few outlying covers

ii6 MEMOIR OF

get-at-able bv him, but rarely drawn by them —
Russell, rather than incur such odium, appealed
point blank to Mr. Newton Fellowes and Mr.
Glubb, both of whom readily and kindly con-
curred in granting him the favour he asked ;
namely, a slice of their respective countries on
either side of Iddesleigh. By that cession,
which, with his little pack, proved to be a suffi-
ciently ample one, he found, as he described it,
" flinging room both for himself and hounds."

But notwithstanding the unexampled sport
he was able to show with his first scratch lot,
some of which were mute and some too free of
tongue, many given to riot, to skirting and other
hereditary faults, he was not long in discovering
that he had still an uphill game to play in at-
tempting to establish an independent dynasty in
that country.

The sport of legitimate fox-hunting being
utterly ignored by a majority of the natives, it
had long been, and still was, their practice to
kill a fox whenever and however they could
catch him, fulfilling to the letter the sentiments
of the Highland chieftain —

"Who ever reck'd, where, how, or when,
The prowHng fox was trapp'd or slain ? "

In fact, to such an extent did this practice pre-
vail, that for the first season or two, owing to
the scarcity of foxes, Russell was compelled to
adopt the primitive plan of hunting both fox

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 117

and hare with the same hounds ; so that when
the real wild article was not to be found, the
other was always at hand to give his hounds
a spin and keep his field in good humour.

He had not been long at Iddesleigh when,
one day as he was drawing for a fox, at some
distance from home, his ear caught the sound of
a church bell, rung in a jingling fashion, and
with more than usual clamour. A stranger
might well have supposed it to be a signal of
alarm intended to warn the country-side that a
fire had broken out on some neighbour's pre-
mises, and that the need of help was urgent
and pressing. But no such thing ; as Russell's
prophetic spirit too well divined, it was the
signal that a fox had been tracked to ground,
or balled into a brake ; and the bell sum-
moned every man who possessed a pickaxe, a
gun, or a terrier, to hasten to the spot and
lend a hand in destroying the noxious animal.

Russell's letter is now before me, describing
his first adventure with a party bent on murder-
ing a fox in his new country :

" During the winter of the first vear I was
at Iddesleigh, the snow at the time lying deep
on the ground, a native — Bartholomew alias Bat
Anstey — came to me and said, ' Hatherley bell
is a-ringing, sir,'

'"Ringing for what?' I enquired, with a
strong misgiving as to the cause of it.

ii8 MEMOIR OF

'"Well, sir, they've a-traced a fox in some-
where ; and they've a-sot the bell a-going to
collect the people to shoot un.'

"'Come, Bat, speak out like a man,' I re-
plied, 'and tell me where 'tis.'

"'In Middlecot earths, sir; just over the
Okement.'

"I was soon on the spot with about ten
couple of my little hounds, and found, standing
around the earths, about a hundred fellows —
the scum of the countrv — headed, I am almost
ashamed to say, by two gentlemen, Mr. Veale,
of Passaford, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Morris,
of Fishleigh, the father of Colonel W. Morris,
of the ' Light Brigade ' — that brilliant swordsman
to whose memory a monument is erected on
Hatherleigh Moor.

" I remonstrated with these gentlemen, and
told them plainly that if they would leave the
earths, and preserve foxes for me, I would
show them more sport with my little pack in
one day than they w^ould see in a whole year
by destroying the gallant animal in so un-
English a way.

"Impressed, apparently, by what I had said,
both gentlemen instantly bade me a 'good
morning,' turned on their heels and left the
place ; while a few shillings, distributed among
the crowd by way of compensation for the
disappointment I had caused them, induced

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL 119

them to disperse and leave me almost sole
occupant of the 'situation.'

"Then, after waiting half an hour or so
near the spot, I turned my head towards home;
but, before I arrived there, I met a man open-
mouthed, bawling out, 'They've a-traced a fox
into Brimblecombe ; for I hear Dowland bell
a-going.'

"So oft' I went to Dowland in post haste;
found out where the fox was lying, turned him
out of a furze bush, ran him one hour and
fortv minutes — a blaze of scent all the wav —
and took him up alive before the hounds on
the very earths I had so lately quitted ; where,
unfortunately for him, a couple of scoundrels
had remained on the watch, and had conse-
quently headed him short back from that
stronghold."

But Russell had not yet finished with the
fox-killers ; for, as he says, " The very next day
after the run from Brimblecombe, a man came
to Iddesleigh on purpose to inform me that
the bell was going at Beaford, and that a fox
had been traced into a brake near that hamlet.
The brake, in reality, though not far from
Iddesleigh, was in Mr. Glubb's country ; but,
feeling sure that the necessity of the case
would justify the encroachment, I let out the
hounds at once, and hurried to the spot with
all speed.

120 MEMOIR OF

" On arriving at the brake I found only one
man near it ; and he, placed there as sentinel,
was guarding it from disturbance with a watch-
ful eye. I asked him to tell me where the fox
was ; but he gave me a very impertinent
answer, saying ' he knawed better than that ;
and wasn't a-going to do no such thing.'

" I kept my temper, however, as well as I
could ; and pulling out half-a-crown, I said,
'There, my man, I'd have given you that if. you
had told me where he was.'

" The fellow's eye positively sparkled at sight
of the silver. ' Let me have it, then, he
replied, ' and I will show you where he is to
a yard,'

" On giving him the money, he pointed to
a tree on the opposite side of the valley, and
said, ' There, do you see that tree t'other side ?
Take the hounds to it, and they'll soon find
him.'

'' ' I've drawn the brake inside that hedge
already,' I said, ' and he isn't there.'

" ' No,' he replied, but he's on the comb of
the hedge, close to that tree.'

"And so he was. I ran him an hour, and
lost him near where he was found. Then, just
as I was calling the hounds away to go home,
down came a crowd of men, women, and
children, the first chiefly from the village inn,
to see this fox murdered. Manv of them had

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 121

brought their loaded guns, were full of beer,
and * eager for the fray.' And when they
discovered that I had disturbed their fox, as
they were pleased to designate him, their
language was anything but choice.

" A strapping young fellow, one of the
principal farmers in the parish came up to me
and said, ' Who are you, sir, to come here and
spoil our sport ? '

"'You would have spoiled mine,' I replied,
* if vou could.'

"'You have no business here,' he said
defiantly.

"'As much as you have,' I replied; 'for the
owner has given me leave to hunt over this
estate, and I mean doing so, too, whenever I
please. So get a horse, come out with me, and
I'll show you some fine sport, if you'll only give
up shooting foxes.'

" ' We'll shoot them whenever we can ; that
I'll promise you,' he said, in an angry tone.

"At that moment one of the hounds began
to howl. I looked round, saw she was in pain,
and asked, in a threatening manner, ' Who
kicked that hound ? '

" No one spoke for half a minute, when a
little boy said, pointing to another, 'That boy
kicked her.'

" ' Did he ? ' I exclaimed ; ' then 'tis lucky
for him that he is a little bov.'

122 MEMOIR OF

"Why?' said the farmer with whom I had
previously been talking.

"'Because,' I replied, 'if a man had kicked
her I would have horsewhipped him on the
spot.'

" ' You would find that a difficult job, if you
tried it,' was his curt answer.

" I jumped off my horse, threw down my
whip, and said, 'Who's the man to prevent me?'

" Not a word was spoken. I stood my
ground, and one by one the crowd retired, the
young farmer amongst the number ; and from
that day forward I secured for myself and suc-
cessors not only the goodwill and co-operation,
but the friendship, of some of the best fox-
preservers that the county of Devon, or any
other county, has ever seen."

The names of a few are still to be found
in the parish of Beaford : viz., Hearn, Snell,
Arnold, Leverton ; and especially a well-to-do
farmer at Dolton, named Wadland, who, though
harriers were kept in his parish, preferred
hunting with fox-hounds ; and many a time,
as Russell relates, has he seen him and a white-
smith, called Heard, of Beaford, crossing and
recrossing the Torridge on foot and in the
depth of winter, following his hounds. Fox-
hunters both were to the backbone.

After that event there can be little doubt
that the farmers, to' their . great credit, from one

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 123

end of the country to the other, finding the
kind of man thev had to deal with, and the
rare sport he was able to show, by degrees
gave up the malpractice to which they had been
so long addicted ; and before two years were
over, so far from persecuting the fox, many a
poor farmer would rather have lost the best
sheep in his flock than seen the gallant animal
killed in anv fashion except by hounds.

The influence, indeed, that Russell very
soon acquired, not only among the farmers, but
the great cover-owners of that country, was
quite marvellous ; it was not attributable to
territorial or monetary qualifications ; for as all
the world knew, he certainly was no Carabbas,
nor did the tide of his exchequer ever rise
above low-water mark ; but it was entirely due
to his manly power as a sportsman, to his acute
knowledge of the fox's habits, his mode of
getting at him and driving him through the
strongest covers, to the fascination of his
thrilling cheer, and, above all, to the charm and
heartiness of his manners. In truth, the feeling
of the farmers towards him amounted almost
to a devotion, and he was treated with a kind
of hero-worship, as if he were a man formed in
a dift'erent mould from other men.

The following anecdote, kindly contributed
bv the Rev. H. Bourchier Wrey, who vouches
for its authenticity, affords a strong illustration

124 MEMOIR OF

how a word from a man of Russell's influence
might have had such effect on a common-sense
juryman as to enable mercy to triumph over the
strict letter of a law which, from its undue
severity, became abrogated not long after the
event here recorded.

Tom Square was a man of peculiar habits —
off by night and abed by day ; earth-stopping
in the season, and when that business was
over, discovering the whereabouts of litters,
and whether the young vagabonds had after-
wards strayed : these were the exploits for
which Tom was renowned. His nocturnal habits,
however, led eventually to serious results : the
sharp moor air, acting keenly on a probably
empty stomach, tempted him to look with
hungry eyes on some well-to-do Exmoor hog-
getts, which, from time to time, the owners
found to be absent without leave.

In a word, he took to sheep-stealing ; and as
that crime was known to be increasing in the
neighbourhood, the farmers combined to set a
watch and, if possible, detect the culprits. So
our poor friend Tom, with others, "got into
trouble." He was suspected, watched, caught
red-handed, and, although many believed his
assertion that "*Twas the very fust time he
had ever doo'd zich a thing," yet was he
proceeded against according to law; he was
arraigned, tried, found guilty, sentenced, and

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 125

the extreme penalty carried out — in fact, poor
Tom Square was hanged.

Shortly after this sad event, Russell hap-
pened to fall in with James R., a neighbouring
farmer, who, as the former had been told, had
served on the jury in the above case. "Why,
Jem," said Russell, accosting him in a tone of
strong remonstrance, "how came this about?
You were on the jury which tried Tom Square!
— there surely was something to be said for
the poor fellow. I've been told it was the
first time he had ever done so. You know
what a quiet man he was, always ready to do
a good turn for a neighbour. 'Twas a pity,
Jem, that you should have given your voice
against him."

"Bless us, Mistre Rissell, yeu doan't zay zo.
My senses ! If us had on'y but knaw'd they
was yeur honour's thoughts, us wid ha' put it
right, fai.' But there, my Lord Jidge said he
did ouft to be hanged — and zo us hanged un.
But, bless 'ee, if us had on'y knaw'd yeur
honour cared about un, us wid ha' put it right
in quick time."

Again, a case of libel was about to be
tried at Exeter between Russell and a gentle-
man called Nott. A special jury being sworn,
one of them. Captain Adney, thus addressed
his brother jurymen: "Now, gentlemen, pray
understand me! I've a pair of new buckskin

126 MEMOIR OF

breeches on" (he always wore them and top-
boots), "and I've made up my mind to sit
here till my skin comes through them to the
bare boards, before I give a verdict against
Jack Russell." In five minutes afterwards the
case was compromised, to the relief and entire
satisfaction of Captain Adney.

Some years afterwards I was present myself
when Russell received the following letter from
a farmer on the North Molton side of his
country ; it ran thus :

" Sir John Rissell,

" Yeur honour will plaize to cum up
to Ben Twitching wi' th' dogs : us be ate out o'
they voxes. Mistiss kipth on a-telling up and
zeth us shan't ha' a Geuse to kill, cum
Chrismus. But I've a zaid I'd gi' her a new
gown to mak' up for't ; zo her han't a vexed
zo mich zince. But do 'ee cum & gi' us a
bit o' sport. Sir.

"Yeur honour's humbl Sarvent,

To give a catalogue of all the farmers'
names who hunted with Russell and became
eventually the staunchest fox-preservers, would
now be a long and difhcult task ; for so many
were they that the list would at least hll a
column or two of the Times. A few, however,
must not be omitted ; such good men and true
for instance, as Mr. Peter Tanton, of Wrays

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 12

/

Farm, whose brake at Wrays never lacked a
litter of foxes. He was the owner of a cele-
brated grey mare by "Crickneck," her dam
being a grey Exmoor by "Katerfelto" — this last
horse, the sire of such wondrous stock, and
the hero of that attractive story written by
Mr. Whyte-Melville, is said to have been
captured after his long run on Exmoor ; and
then bought, according to a tradition still prev-
alent in the region of Hatherleigh, by the Rev.
John Russell, sen., the rector of Iddesleigh,
and Russell's father, in whose possession the
horse died. Then there was Mr. John Brendon,
of Red Windows, near Chillaton, a fine rider,
with consummate nerve and good hands. The
Eastcotts of Broadwoodwidger and Norton ;
Brown of Hollacombe, Parson of Panson, Sec-
combe of Seccombe, a family that have held
their own at Seccombe from a period ante-
cedent to the Norman Conquest : Cory of
Staddon, Oliver Palmer of Tinhay, Tickel of
Bratton-Clovelly, and that rare specimen of a
yeoman, Smale of Thorn.

But the encouragement Russell met with
from the cover-owners around him was, in
some respects, equally warm and gratifying ;
for, besides the cession of the country made
to him by Mr. Newton Fellowes and Mr. Glubb,
another large landed proprietor, Mr. John Morth
Woolcombe, of Ashbury, undertook to preserve

128 MEMOIR OF

the wild districts of Broadbury for him ; while
he himself, although hunting three days a week
with his own hounds, rarely failed to join
Russell's little pack, whenever they met within
reach of Ashbury. Many others, too, supported
him in like manner, promising to preserve
foxes, and inviting him with much heartiness
to draw their covers whenever it suited his
purpose to do so.

But, as a general rule, the support they
gave him was limited chiefly to such conces-
sions ; material aid, in the form of a subscrip-
tion, was neither asked for nor given ; and,
although large fields attended his meets, the
sinews of war for hounds, horses, and keepers
were at first, with one exception, provided by
himself alone. That exception was Mr. C.
Arthur Harris, of Hayne, a young enthusiastic
squire, devoted to hunting, and himself a Master
of Hounds. He had made Russell's acquaint-
ance in 1826, at the Chulmleigh Club, which
flourished for so many years under the able
auspices of Mr. Newton Fellowes, Mr. J. M.
Woolcombe, "the Lord of Ashbury," Mr. L.
Buck, Mr. J. Dicker Fortescue, and other
Devonshire Worthies, both of the Northern
and Southern divisions of the county ; but of
that club more anon.

One day's hunting together was alone suffi-
cent to convince Harris that Russell's knowledge

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 129

of the craft and management of hounds was
of no ordinary stamp or quaUty ; and shortly
afterwards, out of sheer admiration for his
"talents," which a few^ more days had con-
firmed, he proposed throwing in his lot with him
and bearing a liberal share, but not an equal
one, in the maintenance of the united packs.

They struck hands at once ; the offer being
accepted by Russell subject to the following
reservation, namely, that the hounds should
belong to him, and that he alone should hunt
and control them, terms to which the younger
and less experienced sportsman very sensibly
agreed. Accordingly, on a given day in 1827,
the two packs met at Five Oaks, near Oke-
hampton, in all about seventy couple, which
Russell, knowing to a handful of meal the
value of every hound, quickly drafted down to
thirty-five couple. With this lot he proposed
hunting fox alone, giving the country two days
a week, with an occasional bye-day according
to circumstances.

It should be mentioned, however, that pre-
vious to this arrangement, sundry interchanges
of hounds, and especially of puppies, had taken
place between him and Mr. Harris ; all above
twenty inches going to Russell, and those under
that standard to the Hayne kennels. It was at
this period that a hound in Russell's pack, called
" Daphne," by Meynell's " Dreadnought," from

130 MEMOIR OF

Meynell's " Princess," attracted the special
admiration of all who witnessed her marvellous
sagacity and power of nose. She was perfect
in every way : in drawing, in driving, and in
line-hunting. With a w^ave of the hand from
Russell, she would draw a linhay, a pig-sty, or
any conceivable place in which a beaten fox
would try to conceal itself.

It is related of her that, after a hard chase
in the Hatherleigh country, the hounds had
brought their fox into a farmyard, where they
threw up, and failed to carry it a yard farther.
" Daphne," however, flinging to the front, held
the line into a vacant cow-house ; then on to
the manger, half filled with hay, where she just
whimpered, then clambering over the rack into
the loft, or "tallet," forced, as it were, the
running, and out bolted the fox, ran the ridge
of a thatched outhouse, jumped down into a
pig-sty, and there the hounds had him in a
moment. " Mr. Woolcombe, of Ashbury, nearly
rubbed his nose off with delight."

The combination of the two packs had taken
place but a short time, when, towards the end
of the season of 1827, an episode occurred
which, but for an immediate explanation on the
part of Russell, might have caused a rupture of
the newly-formed alliance, and brought it there
and then to an untimely end. A bye-day had
been arranged near Five Oaks, in the Bratton-

^ ; 4 \\H '

^

<

Q

►J
W

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 131

Clovellv country for the purpose not only of
enjoying a day's sport, but of closely testing the
merits of the united pack. True to his time,
Mr. Harris, accompanied by two friends who
were staying with him, namely, Mr. John Glan-
ville and Mr. William Coryton, of Pentillie,
made his appearance at the appointed rendez-
vous ; but there they found no hounds, no
Russell, nor a human being to greet their arrival.

After waiting for some time, not without
sundry growls and misgivings, Harris, unwilling
to lose the chance of sport and disappoint his
friends — who had been invited purposely to
witness the work of the combined forces, and
Russell's skill in handling them — pulled out his
watch and proposed allowing another half-hour
before they gave him up and returned whence
they came. In the midst of this quandary the
music of a pack of hounds in full cry suddenly
burst on their ears ; and at the same time, a
countryman coming up, Harris inquired if he
had seen the hounds, and whose they were
then running so merrily.

" Passon Rissell's, sir, in coose," responded
the man; " they'm a driving hard, sure enow;
and he home to the tails o' mun."

Utterly unable to account for such an extra-
ordinary proceeding on the part of Russell, the
three gentlemen determined to go in pursuit
and ask him to explain his apparent want of

132 REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

courtesy in throwing off so "wide of the meet,"
and disappointing them of their day's sport.
On coming to a turn of the road near Inward-
leigh Moor, there they spied Russell, cool as a
cucumber, sitting at his ease on the back of
Billv, his famous pony-hunter, and quietly
watching the hounds.

"What on earth are you about?" inquired
Harris, in a somewhat hasty and impatient tone.

" Very sorry to have kept you w^aiting,
Arthur," responded Russell, good-humouredly,
" but the truth is, I fed rather late last night,
and the hounds being scarcely fit to trim a
good fox at once, I thought I'd find a hare
first, and let them clear their pipes a bit before
they tackled the stouter animal. They'll come to
the road in a minute, and I'll stop them then."

So he did. The hounds were then trotted
off to a small spinney at the back of Five Oaks,
where they found at once ; and away they went,
straight as a bee-line, over the Inwardleigh
Moor, carrying a fine head over Bowerland
Moor towards Bridestowe, and on to Sourton
and Prewley Moor ; killing him between that
and Lidford, on Dartmoor. Time, one hour and
forty-five minutes.

It is superfluous to add that, under the influ-
ence of that glorious run, the cloud of the morn-
ing vanished like a summer mist, and never more
darkened a day of that brief but happy alliance.

CHAPTER VII.

The Artificial Fox-Earth — Accession of Country —
The Bodmin Meetings — Long Distances to Cover
— Sir Tatton Svkes — The Ivy Bridge Hunt Week
— Rides Home.

O, said he, you will never live to my ag'e, without \-ou
keep yourself in breath with exercise, and in heart with jov-
fulness ; too much thinkinif doth consume the spirits; and oft it
falls out, that, while one thinks too much of his doing, he leaves
to do the effect of his thinking.

Sir PyiLip Sidney.

Russell had been married one year, within a
day, when, on the 2C)th of May, 1827, his wife
presented him with his first-born son, whom
they named John Burv — a precious though a
short-lived offering, for the child died, and was
buried in Iddesleigh Churchyard on the follow-
ing 31st of May. On the 23rd of August,
however, in that year, 1828, just three months
afterwards, a second son was born to them at
Bennington House, and received the names of
Richard Bury Russell — a gentleman who for
some time was Colonel of the North Devon
Militia Artillery, a J. P. for that county, and
died in 1883.

On turning over some manuscripts relating
to those early days and the versatile power of
his little pack, I find, in Russell's handwriting

134 MEMOIR OF

the following letter, which, for the uncommon
day's sport it records, is entitled to a prominent
place in this memoir : —

**One evening soon after the hounds had
been fed, w^io should ride to our door at
Iddesleigh but Billy Morris, a great chum of
mine, then a small boy living with his father
and mother at Fishley, but afterwards a dis-
tinguished swordsman, and one of the glorious
Six Hundred in the Balaclava Charge.

'"I've a holidav to-morrow, Mr. Russell,'
he said, 'and I've come to ask if you will kindly
bring out your hounds, and show me a day's
sport.'

'"With all my heart,' I replied; 'but I have
promised your father's tenant at Norleigh to
kill a hare for him ; so come and meet me
there at ten o'clock.'

'"I'll be there to a minute,' he said, thank-
ing me w^armly, and then galloping off on his
pony, 'big with hope.'

" It was a wretched morning — a regular
downpour of rain — and no one came to the
meet but dear little Billy and Lord Clinton's
steward from Heanton. Well, the hounds found
a hare, and killed her; found another, and
she went as straight as a line to Gribbleford
Bridge, on which we also killed her.

"'Now' said Billy, 'just throw them into
uncle's covers ; there's a fox there, I know.'

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 135

"'Not on any account,' I replied, 'till I have
his permission to do so.'

"'But I'm sure vou may,' he continued; 'for
he told me so last night.'

"I begged him, however, to ride up to
Passaford, half a mile off, and bring me word
'yea or nay,' from his uncle, and promised
that I would wait an hour for his return. I
did wait a full hour, when suddenly the hounds
dashed in over the road-fence, and in an
instant a fox was on his legs. Ran him up
close to the house, but I saw nothing of Billy ;
then breaking away, he put his head straight
for Dartmoor ; but the hounds raced up to him
before he reached Sourton. I viewed him
ahead, and saw him crawl into a large furze-
bush on the open moor ; rode up to it, and,
before the hounds arrived, had him in mv
arms. But there was no house, and therefore
no bag, within a couple of miles ; so I threw
him down, and they ate him — no one up but
myself. I then went back to Norleigh ; but,
before I arrived there, a farmer came up and
asked me to kill a hare for him, wiiich I did;
the hounds, however, tore her so much that
he begged me to try again. I did so, and
found a tough old lady, that gave me as good
a run as the dog-fox had done, though not so
straight ; and I killed her also — two brace of
hares and a fox — a very satisfactory day's work,

136 MEMOIR OF

which was talked about at everv farmer's
ordinary, far and near, and estabhshed my
Httle pack on a firm footing from that day
forth."

But to return to his coadjutor, Mr. Harris,
of Hayne. Owing to the hitherto malpractice
of the natives for so long a time, and the con-
sequent scarcity of foxes throughout the land,
he quickly saw that unless some plan were
adopted by which he could at once protect the
stock and secure a find, even two days a week
would be too much for the country ; especially
as Russell, unlike the man whom one jack-snipe
supplied with sport for a whole season, almost
invariably killed his fox whenever he found him.
In the year 1828, for instance, Russell found
thirty-two foxes, — killed twenty-eight, and
earthed a brace ; besides killing seventy-three
brace of hares with the same scratch pack, of
which hares the hounds certainly ate their
share, namely, thirty-six brace.

Foxes, however, and foxes only, were the
sole object of the new alliance ; and with a
view to cultivate and increase their number,
besides feeing keepers and propitiating the
farmers' wives with attractive and useful
presents — a handsome red shawl to one and a
family Bible to another — Mr. Harris set to
work to construct artificial earths in three of
the chief covers on the Hayne Estate ; the plan

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 137

for which had been given him by Mr. Paul
Ourrv Trebv, of Goodamoor, one of the best
friends to fox-hunting the Dartmoor country
ever knew.

The following rough sketch will probably
enable the reader to understand the plan on
which the earth was formed. It consisted
simply of a narrow walled drain ; which, being
just large enough to admit a small terrier, was
constructed on the slope of a hill in the shape
of the letter Y.

In the lower or main entrance was an iron
plate worked by a spring, but fixed by a pad-
lock, and covered w^ith earth, over which plate
the foxes travelled habituallv.

In the centre was a wide circular chamber,
from which the upper passages branched off ;
and the top of that chamber being covered with
a close-fitting lid, the food for the cubs was
popped in through it. These were fed twice in
the week until full-grown, and afterwards every
Saturdav.

When a fox was wanted, the spring plate
was unpadlocked ; and the upper entrances being
stopped, each with a strong gorse faggot, the
moment he entered, the plate tripped up
behind him, and there he was safe and ready
for the coming event.

It was usually a two o'clock affair ; and
when a glass or two of old sherry — that spur in

138 MEMOIR OF

the head which is said to be worth two on the
heel — had been handed about in front of the
mansion, Blatchford, the keeper, at a given
signal, ungorsed the upper entrances just before
the hounds came up ; then put in a terrier at
the lower end, and away.

It never failed ; but it was a curious fact that
foxes bolted from the Newton Wood earth, at
one end of the park, almost invariably made
for the wilds of Dartmoor, while those found
in the Townleigh earth, on the other side of
the park, broke away in quite a different
direction. It puzzled even Russell to account
for the why and the wherefore of this under-
standing between the fox families, but so it was.

The secret was well kept for years ; but the
certainty of having a fox on foot directly after
the sherry had been imbibed, gave rise to many
strange reports on the subject : some said it
was a bagman from Leadenhall Market : others
fancied — the natives notablv — that there was
some "whistness," or witchcraft, in the business;
it might be, as they thought, the work of
Dick Down, the old huntsman who was eaten
by the Hayne hounds, and whose ghost was
known to haunt the covers round the park.
But Mr. John Crocker Bulteel, in his humor-
ous mood, gave another version of the matter,
and amused the county with a story which
Blatchford, he said, had told him, when he

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 139

brought down a hound to Flete from the Hayne
kennels. On asking Blatchford how the world
went with him, he replied : " Well enough, sir,
thank 'ee, on the whole ; but, Lor, my stum-
mick be almost a wored out by lying so long,
wi' the fox in a bag, on that cold ground up
to Xewton Wood, a-w^aiting for the squire's
hoUey, and for Parson Rissell to bring up
they hounds, and then to let un goo. Lve
scarce no stummick left, yeur honour ; 'tis
fairly stived up wi' th' cold."

The foxes, however, were no bagmen, but the
real old Hectors of the moor, as they so often
proved themselves to be by going straight aw^ay
for their native and far-distant homes. Vixens
and game were scarce in those days, and to
satisfy the cravings of nature, it was marvellous
how far a fox would travel in search of the
one and the other. The cubs fostered in the
artificial earth on arriving at maturity soon
brought immigrants to the colonv from a
distant land, and with one of these before him,
whether found in the drain or a neighbouring
cover, it was no child's-play for Russell and
his hounds to pull him down ere he reached
his own diggings in some inaccessible tor on
rugged Dartmoor.

Oh I it would stir a man's heart to the core
to hear Russell describe some of those Broad-
bury runs, which the brush of a Carter, or the

140 MEMOIR OF

pen even of a Whyte-Melville, would have been
powerless to paint with a like effect. But to
have seen and enjoyed them, as he and his
friends did, must have been a foretaste to them
of the Elysian fields.

" It was said by Voltaire, that Marlborough
had never besieged a fortress which he had not
taken, never fought a battle which he had not
won, never conducted a negotiation which he
had not brought to a prosperous close." So
wrote Lord Stanhope ; and every one who has
read his charming history of Queen Anne's
reign will remember that the Duke of Marl-
borough's achievements — himself beyond all
doubt, one of the first militarv chiefs of that or
any age — could never have been so brilliant and
so uniformly successful but for the support he
obtained from " the Grand Alliance."

In like manner, if it be permitted to com-
pare great things with small — the war of
powerful nations with the sylvan campaign which
Russell was waging among the remote and
peaceful Britons of the far West — it is equally
certain that he, too, proved himself a great
general in his way ; killing or accounting for
his fox almost every time he found him ;
and conquering all classes, not less by the
sport he showed than by his genial fellowship,
manly bearing, and consummate tact. Nor
should the support he met with from his

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 141

alliance with Mr. Arthur Harris, of Hayne,
remain unacknowledged; for beyond all question,
the active and liberal co-operation of that gentle-
man did him invaluable service in his first start
as a Master of Hounds.

Although not yet in possession of that pro-
perty, his father and mother being still alive, the
young squire brought all the influence of his
paternal acres to bear not only, as we have seen,
on the cultivation of foxes, but on the still
further extension of the country ; promising
Russell he would not rest, nor would he let
his friends rest, till he could draw every cover,
if no bigger than a blanket, from Torrington to
Bodmin.

In helping Russell to promote these objects,
which he did with unflagging zeal and energy,
Mr. Harris had the good fortune to be materially
supported by a kind maiden aunt, yclept Pene-
lope ; and so zealous was she in the cause of
fox-hunting that, in her eighty-eighth year, she
remained for some hours in her pony-carriage
watching Mr. Henry Deacon, the present able
Master of the H.H., drawing the Hayne covers,
and finding his fox at length in Arraycot
Wood.

Among the best of the hounds selected by
Russell from the Hayne kennels, and afterwards
drafted by him, was a litter of five, bred from
the Belvoir Rosamond bv a noted hound of

142 MEMOIR OF

Russell's, called Mercury ; they were not only
pictures to look at in point of shape and beauty,
but hard drivers and never idle. Unfortunately,
however, they were very small hounds, and did
not nearly come up to the standard which
Russell, with the prospect before him of seeing
his country largely extended, was anxious to
raise to twenty-two inches ; so, matchless as they
were, both in work and form, the Rosamond lot
were sent to Mr. Tout, of Burrington ; while
others, for a like reason, went to Col. Lloyd
Watkins, of Pennoyre, Mr. George Coham, of
Coham, the Rev. E. Clarke, of St. Dominick, and
lastly, to the Rev. Pomeroy Gilbert, of Bodmin
Priory ; a gentleman, in Russell's own words,
" blessed with a big heart, given to hospitality,
and withal a most accomplished sportsman."

To many a remonstrance against drafting
such a valuable lot, Russell would simply quote,
if not the very words, at least the opinion of a
well-known authority on such matters : "A little
hound will go well in some countries : a large
hound, if fed to go, will go well in all ; " and
he would add emphaticallv, "that's my opinion,
too."

But the sport he had shown, and continued
to show, with his little pack had already made
his name famous throughout the western coun-
ties ; insomuch that many large landed pro-
prietors, whose covers pertained neither to Mr.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 143

Gliibb's hunt, nor to that of Mr. Newton
Fellowes, came forward and invited him not
only to draw them when he pleased, but to
consider them for the future as part and parcel
of his own country. Among those may be
mentioned Mr, J. M. Woolcombe, of Ashbury,
Mr. Savile, of Oaklands, Mr. Tremayne, of
Sydenham, and Mr. Harris Arundell, of Lifton
Park.

But, in addition to these valuable acquisi-
tions, the trustees of Sir William Molesworth,
then a minor, were good enough still further to
enlarge his borders by giving Russell per-
mission to draw the Tetcott and Pencarrow
covers. Again, the Duke of Northumberland's
covers at Werrington, the Duke of Bedford's at
Endsleigh, those of Mr. Baring Gould, Colonel
Fortescue, of Buckland Filleigh, Mr. Luxmoore,
Mr. Buckingham, and of Lord Clinton, were
all placed at his disposal, while at the same
time a general promise was given that foxes,
for the future, would receive fair play.

When the season, then, of 1828 had fairly
set in, Russell must have felt as if the morn
of a golden age was dawning upon him, so full
of promise, so bright and encouraging was the
prospect that now lay before him. Like the
Colossus of Rhodes, he had one foot on Broad-
bury and the other planted on the Bodmin
moors ; with not one, but many great rivers

144 MEMOIR OF

between them ; and a country abounding in
wild open moors, fairly undulated, and holding
a grand scent, over which a hound and a
horse could travel together at tip-top pace,
while every passage of a run might be seen
by the rider ; a country, in fact, such as
Meynell and Warde never saw in their hap-
piest dreams.

Like the "Old Berkeley"' of former days,
which, when hunted by Mr. Harvey Combe
and Mr. Majoribanks, with the famous Harry
Oldaker for their huntsman, extended from
Barnett to Cirencester, this grand moorland
country stretched east and west, literally from
Torrington to Bodmin, a distance of upwards
of seventy miles, including the vast intervening
space, north and south, between Exmoor and
Dartmoor. Then, for the convenience of the
hounds in so wide a range, they occupied,
according to their meets, kennels at Iddesleigh,
Hayne, Bodmin, and Pencarrow ; Iddesleigh,
of course, being their head-quarters at all other
times.

It would be a long task, and in most cases
a downright infliction on the reader, however
patient under the recital of mahogany-runs
that reader might be, if even a tithe of the
brilliant and continuous sport shown by Rus-
sell from 1828 to 1832 were recorded in this
memoir.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 145

Nevertheless, in order to represent the man
in his true colours, and show that, as a hunts-
man, he was equally good all round, a few
only of his most remarkable runs — brilliant with
a burning scent, line-hunting with moderate, or,
again, with a cold and catching scent — have
been selected for that purpose.

Late in the autumn of 1828, the fixture
being Broadbury Castle, Russell and his little
ones met with a greeting such as few have
received and he could never forget — grips of
welcome on every side from the large held
assembled to hunt with him in that wild country.
Conspicuous among the Worthies of Devon
and Cornwall were J. M. Woolcombe, of Ash-
bury ; "Gallant Tom Phillipps," of Landue ;
the late lamented baronet Sir Walter Carew ;
W. Coryton, of Pentillie ; F. and J. Glanville,
of Catchfrench ; Arthur Harris, of Hayne ;
Captain M. Louis ; Paul O. Treby, of Gooda-
moor ; H. Bourchier Wrey, a gentleman always
well mounted, and from his spurs to his hat
neat as a new pin ; L. Buck, of IMoreton ;
Whyte, of Pilton ; Erving Clarke, of Buckland
Tout Saints ; W. Gurney, of Bratton-Clovelly ;
and Moore-Stevens, of Cross.

Russell, as it happened, was short of horses
on that occasion ; but as luck and good fellow-
ship would have it, he was gloriously mounted
by a friend in need, Mr. Arthur Harris,

L

146 MEMOIR OF

who put him on Reuben Apsley by Gains-
boroui^h, a chestnut horse, perfect as a fencer
and a rare goer in deep ground. Found and
away at once ; over the moor at a trimming
pace to Hindabarrow, where they threw up.
Russell, however, in spite of advice to the
contrary, caught hold of his hounds, and taking
them back to a road where he had seen a
hound hesitate for a moment, hit off his fox ;
held the line for a mile or more steadily along
the high road, then quitting it, dashed over the
moor and raced up to him in (iermanswick
Wood, bringing him away in view, and running
into him on Brockscombe Moor. Time, forty
minutes.

Returning homewards, a fox jumped out of
a hedgerow capped with gorse, and away they
went at score, over Beaworthy Hollow and
Soper's Moor, across Wagaford Water, running
from scent to view and rolling him over on the
open moor in fifty-two minutes, without the
ghost of a check from fmd to hnish.

Heavy and deep were the moorlands, while
the boundary fences were big enough to stop a
red-deer. Russell, in each run, went straight
away with his leading hounds, taking the fences
as they came, and maintaining the lead from
(irst to last ; though Phillipps on F'oster, a
noted hunter by Gainsborough, Morth Wool-
combe on Crown Prince, Treby on Spectre, L.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 147

Buck on Alpha, Captain Louis on Harlequin,
Coryton on Raven, Harris on Rosabel, and Mr.
H. Bourchier Wrey on Bodkin, struggled hard
to catch him ; but in vain. He rode like a
man, and handled his hounds, according to the
opinion of all present, as no one else in Devon
could then have done.

When congratulated on the place he had
kept, he jocularly replied, " No wonder, Arthur ;
it was your horse ; but they were my own
spurs."

Then, to begin the New Year auspiciously,
on the ist of January, 1829, Russell displayed
a rare acquaintance with the tactics of a dodging
fox ; and a perseverance in pursuing him worthy
of a sleuth-hound. Found in Harper Wood,
and went away to Abbot's Hill, skirting covers
and running a line of inclosures down to the
Torridge, which they crossed and re-crossed
with slow hunting and an indifferent scent ;
Russell very patient, but now and again hazard-
ing a wide cast to get, if possible, nearer to his
fox. At length, the scent mending, he cheered
on his hounds, and catching an occasional view,
as the fox dodged over his foiled line, he
clapped them on from time to time, forced
him into fresh ground, crossed the river again,
and at last pulled him down gallantly, after a
long and trying chase of two hours and fifteen
minutes.

148 MEMOIR OF

Mrs. Russell was out on the above occasion,
and held, as usual, a forward place throughout
the run ; the patience of her husband and the
perseverance of the hounds giving her the
greatest delight.

Cornwall, like its sister county, is famed, as
all the world knows, for its hospitality ; and
now it was that certain Cornish gentlemen
threw open their halls, their covers, and their
kennels, to welcome Russell across the border
and provide him and his held with a fortnight's
hunting twice in the year — and such hunting,
over those wild moors, the Roughtor and
Brownwilly wastes — the grassy, scent-holding
lands of Tetcott and Pencarrow — as made the
country ring with the sport from Tavistock to
the Land's End.

** Many a tale," writes Mr. Harris, "is even
yet told in the settle of the wayside inn, of the
runs that happened during that hunting period
of unwonted brilliancy. No farmer within the
adjoining or distant parishes, who had a horse
or a pony, failed to be present ; labour was com-
paratively suspended ; and even the women —
' care creature ' — put on their Sunday bonnets
and shawls to go and see Mr. Russell find a fox.
The houses in the neighbourhood were full of
guests, and these hunting meetings possessed
rather the character of triumphant ovations than
the appearance of ordinary fixtures. Petitions

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 149

were made by the farmers to arrange the meets
so as not to interfere with Tavistock market ;
and a sale of stock was not exactly put off, but
the advertisement of it was once delayed until
after the Russell fortnight."

These were the Bodmin Meetings, one of
the chief promoters of which was that excellent
sportsman, the Rev. Pomeroy Gilbert, of Bodmin
Priory ; for he it was who secured Russell as
his guest, whose kennels and stables were placed
entirely at his disposal, and whose influence,
had Russell needed it, would have been amply
sufficient to insure for him a hearty reception
throughout that land. At Pencarrow, too, though
Sir William Molesworth was not yet of age,
friends assembled from afar, till the house was
filled to the rafters ; stalls for two horses being
allotted to each guest ; and the kennels, when
required, to the use of Russell's hounds.

The country houses, in fact, vied with each
other in the warmth and extent of their hospi-
talities, insomuch that the old-fashioned sign
of the w^ayside inn might have been aptly hung
over their own doors : " Good entertainment
here for man and horse."

A memorable day was the i6th of February,
1829, when Russell found three foxes together
in Deviock Wood, near Bodmin, and killed all
three before the sun set on Brownwilly tors. A
brace broke cover at once, going away, like a

150 MEMOIR OF

loving pair, side by side ; while the third stole
off without being viewed, and put his head
straight for the moor.

Breaking on their very brushes, the pack
stuck to the former, pelting after them like a
storm of hail ; when, after a short burst, the
foxes separated, and so did the hounds ; Russell
sticking to one division and screaming to his field
to stop the other. Stop them, indeed ! the moor
was before them, the scent breast-high, and the
best horse that ever was foaled would fail to
head them now in their desperate onward
course.

Mr. Harris on Rosabel, an Irish mare by
Poteen, did his best ; so did Colonel Raleigh
Gilbert and many others ; but they never came
up even to a tail-hound.

And now occurred an incident which, but
for the clever animal under him, might have
terminated with serious, if not fatal results, both
to Rosabel and her rider. Coming best pace to
a high boundary fence, built with stone and
coped with turf, the mare faced it gallantly in
her stride, bucked upon top, and then, with a
vigorous spring, fairly cleared a couple of
bullocks standing for shelter under the moor-wall.
Had either of the beasts shifted its position
and turned moorwards, a collision must have
occurred, which would probably have brought
the day's sport to a tragic end.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 151

Another very remarkable feat of equitation
was performed by the same gentleman about
this time. On returning, after a day's fox-
hunting, to Hayne 7'ia Tinhay Bridge, his
progress was momentarily arrested by discovering
that the bridge, consisting of five arches, was
under repair ; four of which were only partially
finished, while the space intended for the centre
arch was left entirely open, the river running
rapidly and visibly some fourteen feet below.
Mr. Harris, happily, was on Skylark, a Foxbury
mare bred by Mr. Brendon, of Cazantick, and a
perfect hunter. To the horror of the adjoining
cottagers, many of whom were watching him
from their doors, Mr. Harris rode over the
hurdles that fenced off the bridge ; then, giving
the mare her head, she felt cautiously for a sure
footing amid the broken masonry, and, collecting
herself, jumped to the top of the first arch,
then on to the second, paused a moment on the
brink of the centre arch, as if measuring the
exact width of the chasm, then rose cooUv and
collectedly and cleared it at a bound. The two
remaining arches were easily topped ; then came
the hurdles, and away.

Gaylass, Woodbine, Guilty, Comedy, Desperate,
Madcap, Singer, Daphne, and Mercury are
running for blood, and will not be denied. And
though Harris and Colonel Raleigh Gilbert, the
future hero of many a brilliant campaign in

152 MEMOIR OF

India, and afterwards so famous at home both
in " silk and in scarlet," are riding like madmen
to stop them, their efforts are utterly vain. Nav,
had Jove's winged messenger been there, the
god himself could never have stopped those
nine merciless hounds, as on they sped, like
very demons, in pursuit of their prey.

In thirty-five minutes the fox — that gay
Lothario — bright as a new guinea when he first
broke cover, but now beaten and begrimed with
soil, bites the dust, and is torn, as Mr. Whyte-
Melville has it, into

"A hundred tatters of brown."

But what of Russell ? On bringing back
the hounds to Helland Wood there thev found
him, sticking to his fox, like the Old Man of
the Sea to Sinbad the Sailor ; and driving him
like wildfire, through that great cover, as if it
was no bigger than a wallow-spinney.

"A fresh hat in the ring," thought Russell,
as he greeted the nine hounds thrown in at
head : " Now then, Arthur, we shall have him
in no time ; " and they killed him in an hour
and twenty minutes.

On counting the hounds it was found that
three of them w^ere missing ; and anon came
tidings that a third fox had slipped away, and
that those hounds had been seen by a turf-cutter
near the Jamaica Inn, streaming away towards
Brownwilly. Jemmy Revnolds, kennel-man to

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 153

Mr. Pomeroy Gilbert, was then despatched after
them ; and, on approaching a tor of that wild
moor, he heard the three hounds beneath it,
marking among the cavernous rocks that lay at
its base. In went his terriers ; and Jemmy,
soon handling his fox, brought him home that
night, in great triumph, to the Priory kennels.

A friend who was present on that occasion,
writes thus : " I never knew of a pack finding
three foxes at once — with scent breast-high —
and accounting for all three of them, as Russell's
did on that day."

Perhaps there is no more remarkable feature
in Russell's long career than the hardihood of
frame and power of endurance he has exhibited —
and that, too, without showing fatigue — in
riding long distances to cover, hunting his
hounds all day, and returning home at night,
from points frequently far more distant than
even the morning meets. In all the annals of
the chase few men, if any, taking the outside
of a horse as their conveyance, have equalled
him in this respect.

The late Sir Tatton Sykes, a man of Her-
culean strength and courage, comes nearest to
him in the long road distances he was wont to
accomplish in the saddle alone. But it will be
remembered that Sir Tatton rode only thorough-
bred hacks, animals that travelled like oil, and
from their fine condition, did their ten miles an

154 MEMOIR OF

hour with ease to themselves and hixury to
their rider.

His kennel at Eddlesthorpe was at least
fifteen miles from his mansion at Sledmere,
and he was constantly in the habit of riding
thither on hunting mornings before his hounds
left for a meet yet many miles farther. It is
related of him that, "if asked to go a hundred
miles to ride a race, he puts a clean shirt in
his pocket, his racing jacket under his waist-
coat, a pair of overalls above his leathers, and,
jumping upon a thoroughbred tit, arrives there
the next day by the time of starting; and,
when the race is over, canters his thorough-
bred home again."

Far different was Russell's case from Sir
Tatton's. Subject always to a short stud and
indifferent hacks, which not unfrequently were
Exmoor ponies, sometimes half-broken and wild
as the red-deer, Russell fought his way over
the roughest roads in England, starting often
before daylight, and returning still oftener long
after nightfall, guided by instinct or the stars
of heaven to his far-distant home.

It may well be imagined, therefore, that in
the matter of hacks and cross-country roads.
Sir Tatton's performances, however long in the
saddle, were scarcely more than pleasant exer-
cise compared with those of Russell's. Still,
Sir Tatton was a wonder ; and in Yorkshire,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 155

for many a future day, anecdotes of his kindly
but quaint habits, and especially of his manly
prowess, not only as a sportsman, but as an
accomplished athlete, will be cherished even as
household words.

Once, on paying his annual visit to London,
whither he had ridden, as usual, every yard
of the wav from Sledmere, he called in at
Tom Spring's, in Holborn, and, speaking in
the shrill tone which characterized his voice,
he begged to be served with a tankard of
their oldest and strongest ale. Besides himself
and the barmaid, the only other person in the
room was a square-set, broad-shouldered man,
evidently a member of the pugilistic fraternity.
On seeing the tankard brought in, the man
said, in a mimicking way, "Here, Betsy, bring
that ale to me, and take a jug of mild beer
to that old woman."

Sir Tatton turned up his cuffs and buttoned
his coat — a process which brought the prize-
fighter to his legs in one moment ; and at it
they went, there and then.

In less than ten minutes the rufftan was
knocked into a coal-scuttle ; and, having dis-
covered his error, refused to continue the unequal
fight any longer.

"You may now drink the ale, my man," said
Sir Tatton ; "and then go home and tell your wife
you have been well thrashed by an old woman."

156 MEMOIR OF

This is exactly what Russell might have
done in the heyday of his Oxford life.

But now, a few examples will sufhce to show
how severely long were the distances to cover
which Russell habitually performed, both with
foxhounds and staghounds, from the first hour of
his mastership down to the last year of his life.
More than once has he gone, in the grey of
the morning, on horseback, from Iddesleigh to
Four-hole Cross on the Bodmin moors — over
fifty miles — hunted as long as there was light
to see a hound, then, singing '' Dulce, dulce
domum," turned his horse's head and ridden,
through the gloom of night, back to his
home.

Milestones were never heeded bv him when
the object was to meet hounds ; indeed, along
the wild tracts and bv-roads over which his

■J

course usually lay, no such landmarks could
have been seen on the longest summer-day.

During the stag-hunting period of 1877,
Russell, in accordance with his custom for the
last sixty years, on every occasion but one,
rode to Cloutsham Ball and Hawkcombe Head,
hunted all day, and returned to his residence
at Tordown by eleven o'clock p.m. ; the distance
to either meet being about twenty-five miles,
more or less, and the road in many parts little
better than a mere bridle-path. Long habit,
which is second nature, added to a physical

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 157

frame apparently insensible of fatigue, could alone
enable a man in his eighty-second year to do
such distances in the saddle, not only without
suffering, but with a rare appetite for the next
day's sport.

But a week's work performed in the spring
of 1874, when he was only in his seventy-ninth
year, has, I believe, no parallel in the records
of such feats. He was invited by Admiral
and Mrs. Parker to stay a week with them
at Delamore, their seat near Ivybridge, on
the southern side of Dartmoor, to meet Mr.
Mark Rolle, whose hounds were about to hunt
that country, by invitation from Mr. Trelawny,
on alternate days in conjunction with his
own.

Russell would unhesitatingly have said " Nolo
Episcopari," if even the Palatinate of Durham
had been offered to him ; but to enjoy, at the
same time, the hospitality of Delamore and
the treat of a week's hunting with the crack
packs of his two friends was more than he
could resist ; so he responded to Mrs. Parker's
bidding with a grateful acceptance.

Accordingly, on Monday, the 23rd of March,
he was off betimes, riding part way and doing
the rest by rail — a distance altogether of more
than eighty miles. Arrived in time for the
meet, and hunted all day with Mr. Rolle 's
hounds.

158 MEMOIR OF

Tuesday, met Mr. Rolle at Ivybridge.

Wednesday, Mr. Trelawny, Newnham Park.

Thursday, Mr. Rolle, Brent Station.

Friday, Mr. Rolle, Delamore.

Saturday, Mr. Trelawny, Hanger Down.

Unfortunately, the weather during the week
was not favourable to scent ; consequently, with
no lack of foxes, the sport did not prove exactly
the dainty dish Mr. Trelawny's hospitality would
have set before his friends. Having earthed
their fox within a mile or so of Ivybridge on
that sixth day, Russell looked at his watch,
and, finding it was just two o'clock, he took
his hat off to Mrs. Parker, bid her and the field
good-bye, and then, homeward bound, steered
his course northwards directly over the moor.

Between his home and Hanger Down, whence
he started, the distance is roughly estimated at
seventy miles ; and as he pricked on merrily,
and never quitted his saddle, with the exception
of changing his horse midway, till he reached
his own stable door at eleven p.m., it cannot
be less. He then dined heartily, slept well,
and the next day, to crown the week's work,
performed three full services in his parish with
his wonted animation, earnestness, and effect.
'* Before he had taken anything to eat, however,"
writes Admiral Parker, "he sat down and hlled
a sheet of note-paper to my eldest daughter,
saying he had tasted nothing, not even a biscuit,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 159

since he left our breakfast-table that morning
at ten, and that he felt neither hungry, thirsty,
nor tired after his day's work. The distance
from Hanger Down to Dennington," the Admiral
adds, "cannot be less than seventy miles."

But besides Russell, there were a few others
in that country, kindred spirits and friends of
his, whom no road-work could daunt when the
m^et was a good one ; gentlemen who, hunting
either with Russell, Mr. Tom Hext, of Restormel,
or the Landue hounds, were in the habit
of riding incredible distances to cover, and
returning afterwards to their homes at night,
because they could find no comfortable sleeping
quarters in the neighbourhood of such popular
meets as Tetcott, Broadbury Castle, Chapman's
Well, or Dosmarv Pool.

Mr. Trelawny, of Coldrennick, who hunted
the Dartmoor country for thirty years with such
signal success, was notably one of these ; but
again, like Sir Tatton Sykes, the hacks he
rode — Lalage, Melmoth, and Landsend — were
simply perfect.

Another was Mr. C. A. Harris, who, to
meet hounds near Beaford, started from Pen-
tillie Castle at six a.m., and, after a blazing run
and a kill in Castle Hill Park, sixty-live miles
from Pentillie, returned thither to dinner at half
after six, the distance in road-riding alone being
about one hundred and fifteen miles. It was

i6o REV. JOHN RUSSELL

done with a couple of hacks, " Meg Merrihes "
and "Ladybird," the last by " Anacreon " from
Mr. H. Bourchier Wrey's " Ellen," by " Rain-
bow," doing her eighteen miles an hour each
way. The country-folk, at first sight, must
have taken him for Dick Turpin himself ; and,
if they did not raise the hue-and-cry,

"Stop thief! stop thief! a hig-hwayman ! "

they must have been sharp enough to discover
that the mare Mr. Harris rode was a bright
bay, and not the veritable " Black Bess," of
matchless speed and historic renown.

CHAPTER VIII.

Has no Regular Whip — His Three Horses — Termi-
nation OF THE Alliance and Contraction of
his Country — Mr. J. Morth Woolcombe — -The
Pencarrow Run — Mrs. Smith, of Porlock — The
Four Vixen Cubs.

When the country is deepest, I give you my word

'Tis a pride and a pleasure to put him along ;
O'er fallow and pasture he sweeps like a bird,

And there's nothing too wide, nor too high, nor too
strong.

Whyte-Melville.

The formation of Russell's new and "indepen-
dent dynasty," and the grand sport he was
able to show with his little pack, gathered
though it was from all points of the compass,
has been roughly sketched in the foregoing
chapters ; and now, it will be asked, by what
active and competent whip w^as he supported,
or what other efhcient aid did he receive to
enable him to bring about such satisfactory
results ? The question is easily answered : so
strongly was he animated by the spirit of
''self-help," so well did he know the country
and the habits of the wild animal he hunted,
that, with the exception of casual and very
uncertain assistance from his field, and the

M

i62 MEMOIR OF

occasional service of a raw lad — a Jack-of-all-
work called Sam — he literally did the work
single-handed, and depended on no one but
himself.

To ride a long distance to cover in the
morning, to hunt a pack of foxhounds all day,
and at night to jog slowly home with them
to their perhaps far-distant kennel, is usually
held to be work enough and to spare for any
ordinary man ; but if, in addition to these
duties, he has to depend mainly on himself
to keep them together when they divide, to
stop them on riot, and, in fact, to do the
work of a whip, or even two whips, besides
his own, he need, like Alcides, have a double
share of strength, activity, and endurance to
do it all, and do it efficiently.

Nevertheless, this task, the ordinary work
of at least two men, imposed as it was upon
Russell by that old complaint of his — tightness
of the chest — was not only no toil to him,
but a real labour of love — one he would have
ridden "bare ridge" to perform, nay, sacrificed
his last crust to enjoy.

Beckford, the Blackstone of hunting law and
practice, informs us that " no pack of foxhounds
is complete without two whippers-in," and more-
over, adds this testimony to the advantage
gained by the help of a good whip : " I think
I should have better sport and kill more foxes

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 163

with a moderate huntsman and an excellent
whipper-in, than with the best of huntsmen
without such an assistant." Again, " Xo one
knows better than you do how essential a good
adjutant is to a regiment ; believe me, a good
whipper-in is not less so to a pack of fox-
hounds." Then, with reference to the duty of
a whipper-in, he continues, " While the huntsman
is riding to his head-hounds, the whipper-in, if
he has genius, may show it in various ways ;
he may clap forward to any great earth that may
by chance be open ; he may sink the wind to
halloa, or mob a fox when the scent fails ; he
may keep him off his foil ; he may stop the
tail-hounds and get them forward, and has it
frequently in his power to assist the hounds
without doing them any hurt, provided he has
sense to distinguish where he is wanted most.
Besides, the most essential part of fox-hunting,
the making and keeping the pack steady,
depends entirely upon him, as a huntsman
should seldom rate, and never flog a hound."

Notwithstanding the importance, then, attached
by Beckford to the business of a whip, and
the high qualifications which should be found
in a man acting in that capacity, Russell managed
for some time to do well without one, depend-
ing, as we have seen, solelv on himself and
the rough boy already referred to. But, though
rough in appearance, Sam had his wits about

i64 MEMOIR OF

him, and very soon profited by the lessons
in which his master spared no pains to instruct
him. For instance, Sam, with a view to his
education, was occasionally permitted to join
the well-appointed pack of the Hon. Newton-
Fellowes, and at such times was especially
charged to keep his eye on Stephen, first
whipper-in to the latter, and carefully to note
his tactics.

Then, the pastime of the day over, Russell
would summon the lad to his dining-room, put
him through his facings, and minutely test the
result of his day's schooling by asking him such
questions as the following : —

" Now, Sam, you saw the second whip riding
after and rating those riotous puppies. Fleecer
and Frantic, when he was a lanyard or more
behind them ; was he right or wrong in doing
so, and what would you have done ? "

" Got to their head, sir, and then rated
them."

" Quite right, Sam ; but, bear in mind, if
you want to punish a hound, you should hit
him first and rate him afterwards."

" Supposing a change takes place in cover,
and the hounds divide, which lot should you
stop?"

"That depends on the huntsman, sir: if he
holds to one lot, I should stop the other, and
get them forward as fast as I could."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 165

"That's right, Sam; and don't forget to do
the same by the tail-hounds. Good boy ; you
may go now."

Thus schooled, theoretically as well as practi-
cally, Sam, blessed with some genius and strong
common sense, became in the course of a few
years as useful and clever a whip as ever
followed a hound ; so that, with his help and
the use of his own significant horn, Russell,
not caring a button for show, but only for
the sport, could well afford to dispense with
the needless encumbrance of a more costly
staff.

Some years afterwards John Beale, huntsman
to Sir Walter Carew, and subsequently to the
Tiverton Hounds, did wonders single-handed
with the latter pack. He had the rare knack,
when a fox was up, of getting to their head and
keeping his horn going merrilv alongside the
leading hounds, a signal so well understood by
the rest of the pack, that he rarely left a hound
behind him in breaking away from the deepest
covers. Manv condemned him as being a tinker
in his trade, making more noise than was either
necessary or agreeable ; nevertheless, the system
worked admirably — that lively blast and sharp
wild cheer of his gathered up the deep-drawing
hounds as no whip in the world could have
done it, and brought them, out and together,
on the very back of their fox ; for nobody

i66 MEMOIR OF

knew better than he did that " a fox well found
is a fox half killed."

Thus, without the help of a regular whip,
"old John Beale " killed his foxes, and did it
handsomely, showing such sport as, so long as
that generation lasts, will not readily be forgotten
in the Tiverton country.

"•Russell's plan was very much the same — his
horn was half the battle to him ; but, educated
as he had been in the high-class school of Mr.
George Templer and Mr. John Codrington, his
style, as might be expected, was that of a gentle-
man ; for although quite as energetic as John
Beale, and with an eye like a hawk to his head-
hounds, no one was ever heard to object either
to the lively shake of his horn, or to the
soul-stirring echoes of his musical cheer. On
the contrary, as a farmer was once heard to
say, '' It fairly mak'th a man's heart jump in
his waistcoat to hear Passon Rissell find his
fox ; 'twixt he and the hounds, 'tis like a band
of music striking up for a dance."

The history and character of the pack
hunted by Russell during his residence at Iddes-
leigh having been thus briefly recorded, the
reader will now expect to learn something of his
stud, what his powers as a horseman were, and
how he acquitted himself as a rider to hounds.

To describe him as having been a brilliant
performer across country, or to compare him,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 167

for instance with such men as Mr. Assheton
Smith, Mr. Lindo, or Lord Alvanley, would be
wholly beside the mark ; for, in the first place,
Devonshire, with its picturesque scenery, deep
woodlands, hollow combes, and banks averaging
ten or twelve feet in height, is a very different
country to ride over from the undulating pas-
tures and flyable fences of the Midland coui^ies.
In the next place, his financial means, to which
allusion has already been made, always acting
as a drag on his wheel, not only limited his
choice, but constrained him to the disadvantage
of a short stud, and to the absolute necessity of
husbanding its resources, whenever an oppor-
tunity enabled him to do so.

Thus it may with truth be said that in
moments of the purest enjoyment, when scent
served and hounds were running breast-high,
the thought of easing his horse and saving its
legs was never absent from his mind ; that was
the one care that sat behind his saddle — the
spectre that haunted him when the game was
at its height — the one unpalatable drop in the
bumper of enjoyment he was drinking to the
dregs ; for the thought of to-morrow would
obtrude itself, would make him constantly dis-
mount and lead his horse over high banks, when,
if his stud had been less hmited, he certainly
would have taken the quicker, and, to himself,
the far easier mode of getting at his hounds.

i68 MEMOIR OF

Russell, therefore, could neither be called a
bruiser, nor even a hard man, in the common
acceptation of that term; but his judgment as
a horseman could never be impugned ; he had
fair hands, a quick eye, a heart in the right
place, and so firm and yet easy a seat in the
saddle, that no one who looked at him when
mounted but would say, "That's a workman,
every inch of him."

Nevertheless, despite the drawback mentioned,
and all other difficulties, Russell very rarely
failed to be close to his hounds ; nor, though
he lamented his "cumbrous weight" — some
twelve stone odd — did the three brave horses
that carried him so safely and well for manv
a hard season appear to be overtaxed , by the
work, or show any signs of unnatural decay.
They were called Billy, Cottager, and Monkey.

The last, a chestnut horse, although some-
what uncertain in his temper, became a hunter
of great renown in the country, doing his
work admirably, and coming home gay as
a lark after the longest day. The second was
an entire horse, very clever at his fences, but
very vicious ; he would turn round and bite
like a bull-dog if the rider gave hiiii the ghost
of a chance. Even in his gallop he would
occasionally take a grab at the point of Russell's
foot ; and, had he caught it, would have torn
the boot ruthlessly from his leg. Twice he

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 169

seized him by the coat, but fortunately without
doing more damage than merely rending the
garment. Once indeed he very nearly brought
an old friend of Russell's, Dr. George Owen,
to serious grief. They were riding in chase
side by side — the hounds running hard — when
Cottager, in a sudden paroxysm of temper,
made a fierce grab at Owen's horse ; but,
luckily, instead of catching him with his teeth,
he only caught the saddle-cloth and one
skirt of the rider's coat. These he tore from
the back of both, leaving the worthy doctor —
the "Owen swift and Owen strong'" of that
countrv — in the ludicrous predicament of Bailie
Nicol Jarvie, when cut down bv the dirk of
the Highland gillie.

On another occasion, Russell, when riding
Cottager and hunting with a new draft from the
Hambledon Hounds, found a fox near Beaford
Moor, and pressed him in cover so sharply that
he turned short and broke away, unknown to
him, down wind. Losing sight of the pack,
and fancying he viewed a tail-hound at the
extreme end of the moor, he rode up, and there
found an Irish packman, Peter Dougan by
name, standing on a bank, and blown by the
chase ; but still staring after it with bated breath
and longing eyes.

" Have you seen the hounds, my man ? "
inquired Russell, eagerly.

170 MEMOIR OF

" Iss, your honour ; they're jist ahead, running
like a peal of bells."

"Then jump up behind me, pack and all,"
said Russell, charmed with the man's enthusiasm
and evident love of hunting; ''jump up, and
you shall see a bit more of the sport."

"Bedad, then," said Peter, "that I'll do;"
and as Russell adjusted Cottager to the bank,
Peter and his pack took their place behind the
cantle, notwithstanding the broad meanings dis-
played by the horse at being thus loaded. He then
turned to kick furiously, and never stopped kick-
ing till he had fairly floored Peter and his pack.

Not long after this adventure, when Russell
was riding the chestnut horse Monkey, Peter
again met him, and said he had a great favour
to ask him, and that was, that he would allow
him to ride that horse over a five-barred gate,
with his hands tied behind his back, his face to
the horse's tail, and without saddle or bridle.
"And," said Peter, entreatingly, "I'll give ye
me pack, sir, af ye'll let me do it ; and, by me
sowl, 'tis worth five pounds."

Russell, in a state of wonderment, inquired
why he w^as so anxious to perform such a feat,
pointing out the danger of attempting it in such
a fashion,

" Faix, your honour," replied Peter, " I should
like to tell 'em what I've done in England when
I get back to the ould country."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 171

Monkey with hounds, and in a good temper,
would jump any ordinary five-barred gate ; but
otherwise wouldn't rise at a fender. " Had I
granted his request," said Russell, "the horse
would have broken Peter's neck to a dead

certaintv."

For years afterwards the Irishman, on his an-
nual journeys to England, never failed to include
in his pack a few silk pocket-handkerchiefs of
the blue bird's-eye pattern, which he brought
especially for Russell's use ; and it was with
no little difficulty that he could be persuaded
to take payment for those articles, so devoted
an admirer was he of Russell and his hounds.
And so well known to the hawking fraternity
in Ireland was Russell's name, that not five
years ago — forty years after Peter Dougan's
date — the former overtook two Irishmen near
South Molton, and having packs on their backs,
he inquired whence they came : " From Ireland,
your honour," was the reply; "we landed at
Ilfracombe last night."

"Have you any handkerchiefs of this pattern?"
asked Russell, showing them a bird's-eye blue one.

" No, your honour ; they are very scarce
now."

"Well," he replied, "I bought them from a
countryman of yours, Pat Dougan by name."

" 'Tis Peter Dougan you mane ; and you
are Mr. Russell, ef vou had them from him.

172 ' MEMOIR OF

Ah ! poor Peter ; he dearly loved hunting, and
was always talking about your riverence ; he's
been dead many, many years."

On parting company the packmen volunteered
to bring him the handkerchiefs he required ; a
promise which, after due time, they did not fail
to fulfil.

Now for Billy, the stand-by of Russell's
stable, and, as he was wont to declare, the best
horse he ever crossed in his life. Billy was
a bay pony, fourteen hands high — " big as a
mountain and long as to-day and to-morrow."
He was by a two-year-old grass colt by Twilight,
a grandson of Eclipse, out of an Exmoor pony ;
and was bred by Mr. Wreford, of Clannaborough,
so well known to Devonshire men as one of
the most successful breeders of blood stock in
the West of England.

Of the stout and enduring qualities of Billy
it is enough to say that Russell never knew him
beaten ; nor, as a proof of it, did he ever fail
to come home merrily, however long the day,
and pick up his corn to the last grain in the
manger. His staying powers in chase, his bank-
fencing, and mode of getting through heavy
ground, under the weight he carried and the pace
he maintained, were truly marvellous. "Russell,"
writes Mr. Harris, "mounted me once on Billy,
and little did I anticipate the great treat in store
for me. The meet was at Broadbury Castle ;

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL 173

and thinking him a pony I at first rode him
quietly ; but when the hounds began to run,
Billy pulled at his snaffle, and letting him go he
went with a will right up to the head, as if he
had said to himself, ' That's my place, and I
mean to keep it.' And so he did ; no bank
could stop him ; no pace choke him off ; he
could stay all day, and go a cracker through
dirt up to the very last. In fact, he was in
every respect a steed worthy of his renowned
ancestor ; and I much doubt if Wreford ever
bred a gamer or a better animal."

Russell, it is almost surperfluous to say,
valued liim as the apple of his eye ; nay, if
he had suffered himself to be tempted by gold,
he might at any time have filled his pockets
with the price of Billy. But to all offers
Russell cried, Avaunt ! and death alone divided
the twain.

Nor was that altogether strictly the case ; for,
when the event took place after a faithful servi-
tude of more than ten years, Billy's glossy hide,
being removed by skilful hands, was sent to a
tanner's, and afterwards formed the covering of
a most comfortable armchair. The legs and
hoofs, the latter beautifully polished and fitted
with invisible castors, were all Billy's ; and well
might Russell, reclining in the once familiar seat,
and perhaps dozing after a long day's work, be
led by fancy's dream to believe that Billy was

174 MEMOIR OF

again under him, sharing the sport together as
of yore, and bearing him on eagle wings to the
front of the chase.

Such a dream would surely be far less
unnatural and far happier than the endless in-
consequential visions in which men, dipped in
Lethe's stream, are so apt to indulge.

But, though Russell would ofttimes allude
with tearful regret to the memory of Billy, he
conferred the same honour on Cottager and
Monkey ; and there they all stood in the dining-
room at Tordown as if the gods in a moment
of compassion had transformed the trio into
easy armchairs, determined that Russell and his
friends, like Baucis and Philemon, should not
be parted even by death.

Such was his mode of cherishing the remem-
brance of the faithful brute companions that had
served him so well in life ; and on their part
they were still, as it were, doing him grateful
service by administering tO the comfort of him-
self and guests, and reminding them of many a
bygone day of thrilling sport and innocent
recreation.

Frederick the Great, we are told, expressed
a wish even in his w^ll to be buried with his
favourite dogs, and especially near the horse
that had carried him so often to victory ; but
Russell's fancy for conserving the relics of his
mute friends and enjoying their company, still

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 175

present in the form of armchairs, conveys a far
pleasanter notion than that of the old warrior,
whose last words were, " I shall be near him
very soon." Notwithstanding his will, however,
his faithful pets did not " bear him company,"
for his bodv received the burial of a Christian,
and lies under the pulpit in Potsdam Church.

Many a pleasantry would Russell pass when
inviting a guest to take a seat on one of his old
friend's backs. '"There," he would say, "give
old Cottager a turn ; he'll carry you as easily as
a feather-bed ; and he never bites now." Or,
" Try Billy ; if he can't go through dirt as he
once could, he's up to any weight and won't
give you a fall."

These, however, are later reminiscences of
Tordown, the Alpine home to which he removed
on quitting Iddesleigh in 1832, and to which he
once more recently returned ; hoping, as he then
expressed it, to remain there till " the golden
bowl be broken, and the spirit shall return unto
God who gave it." But the sketch given of
the horses has carried both writer and reader
over the scent, and a backward cast — never a
favourite one of Russell's — is now necessary to
recover the line.

Russell had now entered on the third season
of his mastership, and so far had literally basked
in the sunshine of success ; but in the autumn
of 1829, without being an augur, he was not

176 MEMOIR OF

slow to observe that over the Tetcott and
Broadbury districts loomed ominous clouds,
which portended a break-up of the present
arrangements, as well as probably an extensive
change in the landmarks of his country. Nor
was he kept long in suspense ; for on Friday
the 13th of November his pack met at Five
Oaks for the last time under the old regime. A
glorious finale, however, crowned the event ; he
killed a brace of foxes, the first in fifty minutes
and the next at the end of a long dodging run,
in which by the manner he handled his hounds
Russell's woodcraft was eminently displayed.

The circumstances that led to the change
were complicated. In the first place the country
was much too large for the means at command ;
for, owing to the ardent support of the yeomen-
farmers, far and wide, foxes had largely increased
throughout the land ; consequently the damage
fund and the expense of feeing the keepers, etc.,
rising proportionately, the sum total amounted
soon to a serious charge on an exchequer too
often inconveniently straitened and never over-
flowing. This, perhaps, may be considered the
root of the matter. But there was also a
general suspicion among Russell's friends that
jealousy had a finger in the pie ; and that that
feeling, intensified by the impression that the
country was insufficiently hunted, prompted a
small party, including the Molesworth Trustees,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 177

to come forward and suggest the need of
another pack of hounds, and therefore the
curtaihiient of Russell's country.

So the Landue pack, under the command
of as gallant a rider as ever crossed a country,
Mr. Phillipps, late of the 7th Hussars, better
known as Tom Phillipps, was forthwith started,
and the Tetcott, Hayne, and Broadbury covers
wrested from Russell, and handed over to him.
He then took formal possession of the country,
"the limits of which," writes Russell, "appear
to me to be illimitable ; for they claimed all
the covers from Hatherleigh — three miles from
my kennels at Iddesleigh — to Wade Bridge,
ten miles below Bodmin."

Phillipps, however, met one morning at
Gribbleford Bridge, only two miles from
Hatherleigh, found four brace of foxes in the
cover — a dog, vixen, and three brace of cubs
— but made a mull of it, called off his hounds
in disgust and went home, a distance of thirty
miles at least to his kennel. After some time
it was communicated to Russell that Phillipps
would never draw those covers again ; so, as
the country was a choice one, comprising the
fine moorland district of Broadbury, the wildest
in the West of England, Russell bethought .
him how he could best recover his footing
and bring about the desirable end of securing
it for his own.

N

lyS MEMOIR OF

A turn in his favour by the wheel of fortune
soon gave him a suitable opportunity. Mr. J.
Morth Woolcombe happening to join him one
morning, "they found," in Russell's words, "a
right real Dartmoor Hector, and away he went
for his native moorland, straight as a bee-line;
but he never set foot on it, for we ran into him
about a mile short of his haunts. Just before
we killed him, he crossed some enclosures, and
the hounds coming back to us, I held up my
hands and said, ' Stand still, gentlemen, pray I
the fox is in this held.' It was not two acres
and it was plough.

" ' Nonsense ! ' cried Woolcombe ; * we should
see him if he were.'

" * He is here, I tell you, if I know my
hounds.' And in a moment they seized him
within a few yards of his horse's feet.

" ' His delight was unbounded ; he begged
me as a particular favour to go home by
way of Ashbury, invited the whole Held into
the hall, drew cork after cork of champagne,
toasted the little Iddesleigh pack and their
master, and promised similar hospitality when-
ever they killed a fox within reach of his
domain.

" He kept his word too up to a certain time,
when, for some reason I never could fathom, he
sent his brother Robert over to Iddesleigh to
negotiate for the purchase of my whole pack. I

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 179

was not at home ; but when I returned to dinner
Mrs. Russell said, ' Robert Woolcombe has been
here all the morning, waiting to see you.'

" ' And did he say what he wanted ? ' I
inquired.

" ' His brother is anxious to buy your hounds,
and sent him over to treat for them ; they think
that, as a clergyman, you ought not to keep
them.'

"'They are very kind neighbours,' I said,
' and I fully appreciate their good feeling ; but
at the same time I hope I do them no wrong
if I altogether mistrust their motives.'

" ' Robert is coming again to-morrow,' con-
tinued Mrs. Russell, ' and is bent on seeing
you.'

" Before the morrow arrived, however, being
forewarned as to the object of his visit, I was
fully prepared with my answer.

"The next day he accordingly came; and
as he took me by the hand, I said, ' Well
Robert, and pray what's your pleasure ? '

" ' I came to buy your hounds,' he responded,
bluntly ; ' what's your price ? '

"'Three hundred guineas,' I replied, 'for
all but five couple, which I shall keep.'

"'A bargain,' he said; "I'll take them.
But what are you going to do with the five
couple ? '

" ' Keep them as a nucleus for another pack.'

i8o MEMOIR OF

"'Oh, that will never do,' he said; 'we
want the country ; the hounds are no use to
us without it.'

" 'Then you shall have neither. Bob,' was
my decisive reply.

"And so ended the negotiation. We then
parted, and I went on hunting the country and
killing the wild animal as heretofore."

It was a real grief to Russell for many a day
afterwards to discover, as he very soon did, that
foxes in the Broadbury country became scarcer
and scarcer yearly, and that at length Mr.
Woolcombe went so far as to wage open war
against the wiiole race by ordering his keepers
and tenants to trap, shoot, and destroy every fox
they found bred or travelling over his estate.
And so rigorously was this mandate executed,
that a paragraph appeared in the papers
announcing the number of vixens and cubs he
had destroyed, and calculating that he had rid
the country of no less than two hundred and
fifty foxes, great, small, and forthcoming. Nay,
large placards were printed at Okehampton and
posted in the neighbourhood, setting forth the
above gross statement, and justifying the slaughter
as one of meritorious service to the whole
community.

But although at the time it was denounced
as a most unneighbourly proceeding on the part
of Mr. Woolcombe, there are good grounds now

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. iSi

for believing that he was, in truth, influenced
by conscientious scruples onlv, rather than bv
any ill-will to Russell ; for in speaking of him
apart from his profession, he was wont to express
his unbounded admiration of his manlv power
and pre-eminent ability in all that pertained to
the science of woodcraft.

Great indeed was the indignation, especially
of the hunting community, at this wholesale
massacre of the foxes. One Jack White, a
horse-dealer, is said to have upbraided Mr.
Woolcombe, who was a verv tall man, to his
very face.

"Let me tell you, sir," said Jack, "that
you're six feet four of the very worse stuff as
I ever seed wrapped up in one bundle. Gude
morning, sir."

It was not without good reason, therefore,
that Mr. Phillipps, either from a mistrust in the
friendship of the cover-owners, or from a manly
feeling that he would be doing Russell an
ill-service by continuing to hunt that country,
declined, after the day at Gribbleford Bridge,
to bring his hounds again to that locality, and
thenceforth devoted himself exclusively to the
region round about Tetcott and Pencarrow.
One thing is certain, that in every transaction
with respect to Russell and the Broadbury
country, Mr. Phillipp's conduct was always
straightforward and altogether unimpeachable.

i82 MEMOIR OF

Early in the spring of 1831, the young
baronet, Sir WiUiam Molesworth, then in his
twenty-first year, having invited a large party of
gentlemen to meet Phillipps and the Landue
hounds at Pencarrow for a fortnight's hunting,
the house was filled to the rafters. Two stalls
were allotted to each guest, and hacks ad lihitiiin
found room in the stables of the neighbouring
tenants. The few survivors of that meeting —
and now, alas, they are very few — will never
forget the i6th of February in that fortnight,
when a fox was found at Polbrock, near the
riverside, every hound breaking away almost on
his back, bringing him over the paling into
Pencarrow Park, and by the Roman mounds
away to Helland Wood ; thence tearing on with
a burning scent over the virgin soil of the vast
rough enclosures, they carried a grand head,
and, dashing five or six couple abreast over the
big boundary fence, broke out on the moor and
on to the Launceston and Bodmin road, where
they dropped into slow hunting and then threw
up.

The road was of granite, hard as iron and
dry as brickdust ; but a hound called Memory,
with nose well down, held on, faintly feathering
here and there, yet still on — the rest of the
hounds, with heads up, being hopelessly at fault.
Phillipps, growing impatient and grasping his
horn, was turning to cast them towards the

/4j y J^m .

s=Nr

The Finish of the Pencarrow Run.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 183

Torrs northwards, when Russell, keeping his
eye on Memory, held up his hand and exclaimed,
" Do, pray, give her time. There I — she has it,
I tell you, and will fling her tongue in half a
minute if you'll let her alone."

But Phillipps icoiild make his cast, while
Russell and Mr. Pomerov Gilbert remained
stationary, intent only upon Memory, as she
still persevered steadily on the road. At length,
a patch of wet soil giving her a chance, she
dropped her stern, and at the same time throw-
ing her tongue, dashed over the heather-bank
on to Temple Moor and away. Russell's scream
was too thrilling, too rapturous, to describe.
Away, away, over that grand waste of heather
— a thorough wilderness ; not a vestige of man ;
not a solitary patch of gorse ; not even a twig
to shelter a wild animal for leagues.

Racing him to the boundary fence of the
moor above Trebartha the hounds caught a view,
and instantly as if by a stroke of magic they
and the fox vanished from the scene. It seemed
to the foremost riders, Mr. Charles Trelawny
on Oswestry, Mr. Phillipps on Foster, Mr.
Harris, Mr. Coryton, and Mr. Tom Hext, who
was the first to view him, that the earth had
opened her jaws and swallowed them alive ; and
such was the case ; the shaft of an old mine
lay open, and they had fallen

" Into utter darkness, deep engulphed."

i84 MEMOIR OF

The fox, indeed, with the activity of a wild
beast, had clambered on to a broken beam ; but
three of the leading hounds were swimming
about in the dark water at the bottom of the
mine, some seven fathoms deep ; while the rest
of the pack had stopped short of the abyss and
scrambled out.

" Gone to ground with a vengeance," ex-
claimed Phillipps, with bitter emphasis, dreading
the loss of his hounds.

In a few minutes some miners appeared on
the ground ; but not a man of them would go
down, not daring to face the dangers of the
decayed framework in the precipitous shaft.
Not so, however, " Jack Russell," who, with a
knotted rope in one hand and his hunting-wliip in
the other, lowered himself, amid a shower of loose
stones and earth, to the beam on which the fox
was crouching. Then running the thong through
the keeper of his whip, and fixing the noose
round the animal's neck, he shouted aloud, "Haul
away, I've got him ! " and in half a minute he
and the fox were landed again on terra firiiia.

" Save him, Phillipps ; he is a gallant fellow
and deserves his life," said Russell, begging
hard for a reprieve.

But Phillipps sternly said, "No," and tossed
him to the hounds.

Then to save the three brave brutes now
struggling in the pit from a longer immersion.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 185

Russell was again prepared to go to the rescue,
had not Colonel (afterwards Sir Walter Raleigh
Gilbert) persuaded a miner, by the bribe of a
capful of silver, to go down ; and secured by
a rope round his waist, to bring up the hounds,
one by one, safely "to bank."

It was a grand run throughout : sixteen
miles as the crow flies — measured on the map
— and the last seven over the wild open moor
without the shadow of a fence or check from
first to last.

Russell to the end of his life spoke of it as
one of the finest things he had ever witnessed;
but the cream of the run, the finishing touch
— that brilliant passage over the Bodmin Moor
— was due to him and him alone.

Of the many queer incidents that befell him
in those early days, the one he met with at
Porlock is by no means the least amusing ; and
as it illustrates the feeling of a strong partisan
in favour of him and his hounds, it shall be
told as nearly as possible in his own words.

" In the spring of 1830 I took my little pack
down to Porlock to enjoy a week's hunting in
the open and extensive commons in that locality;
and rare sport we had day after day both with
fox and hare. I was accompanied by the Rev.
J. Pomeroy Gilbert, there to be joined by the
Rev. H. Farr Yeatman, two of the best and
most accomplished sportsmen I ever met, to

i86 MEMOIR OF

whose names let me add that of George
Templer, of Stover ; such a trio they were as
the world has rarely seen together in the
hunting-field.

"On our return from the hills one evening,
Mrs. Smith, our hostess at the Ship Hotel,
where we were staying thus accosted me —

" ' If you plaise, Mr. Rissell, that old scamp.
Squire Tamlyn, as they call 'en, hath a been
down here to forbid you from hunting over his
property. Now hearken to me, sir, and us'll
tackle 'en, as all sich varmint ouft to be tackled.
Ask 'en to come here and dine with 'ee to-
morrow, and w4ien he'th a sot down comfortable
afore the fire, give the t'other gentlemen a wink
to leave the room, and I'll come in quietly behind
'en, seize his both arms, and then do you wallop
'en over the face and eyes till he sings out for
mercy. I'll never let 'en go, mind, till you've a
finished with 'en ; and that I'll promise ye.'

"At this point I ventured to remonstrate
with her, urging, first, that it would be a gross
breach of hospitality, and then that a summons
for the assault would be sure to follow.

" ' But,' exclaimed the woman, * the magis-
trates shan't get a word out of me to convict
you, sir, if he doth get a summons ; and what's
more, I'll tell 'em two or three such pretty
stories about 'en, as he won't like to hear ;
and there the matter '11 end.'

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 187

"The next day," says Russell, "with the
view of propitiating Mr. Tamlyn, I wrote him
a very polite note inviting him to dine with
us ; but he declined the honour, much to the
disgust of Mrs. Smith, who consoled herself
with these words, 'Well, never mind, I'll give
it to 'en mvself the first time I set eyes on
the mean old scamp.'

"And," continued Russell, "I have reason
to believe that she absolutely kept her word ;
for she was a veritable termagant — a tigress in
petticoats."

One result of the week's sport being some-
what remarkable, it may interest the reader to
have it in Russell's words: "The very day
Tamlyn went to Porlock to forbid my hunting,
I found a fox in the heath on Lucat Com-
mon, his property. Thinking it was a vixen, I
rode up to the bush out of which she jumped,
and, behold ! curled up in a warm nest were
four live cubs. I tied my handkerchief to a
bush hard by, and rode after the pack as fast
as my horse could carry me. But it was a
blaze of scent all the way ; and in thirty
minutes, to my great annoyance, they ran into
and killed poor little Vicky. I then returned
to her kennel, took up the cubs — all four
vixens — and sent them by Bat Anstey to Iddes-
leigh, fifty miles away. An earth was made
for them under Halsdon, Mr. Purse's residence;

i88 REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

and in and around that earth they remained,
being ear-marked, and thriving well, till the
following October, when suddenly they dis-
appeared, and I never had the good luck to
find one of them again with hounds.

"Slv years aftenvards, I met the late Mr.
Newton, of Bridestowe, in Barnstaple, and he
asked me if I had ever ear-marked — describing
the mark — any foxes and lost sight of them.

"'Yes,' I said; 'four cubs, all vixens.'
'Then,' he replied, 'I found them last March
in some brakes near Broadwood-Widger, twenty-
five miles below Halsdon ; had good runs with
each, and killed all four.'"

CHAPTER IX.

Removes to Swymbridge — His Kindness to the Gipsies
— St. Hubert's Hall — The Vine Draft — The
Chulmleigh Club — The Bishop of Exeter and the
Charges against Russell — Bishop revokes the
Curate's License — Mr. Trelavvny on the Chulmleigh
Meetings.

His house was known to all the vagrant train,

He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ;

Careless their merits or their faults to scan,

His pity gave ere charity began.

Goldsmith.

Mr. Russell had resided just six years at
Iddesleigh, when, in 1832, the prospect of pre-
ferment being held out to him, he was induced
to remove to Tordown, in the parish of Swym-
bridge ; a lone country-house overhanging a
picturesque combe, and approached by a steep
by-road leading from that village to Exmoor.
To Mrs. Russell, especially, the change proved
a most welcome one, inasmuch as it now brought
her back to the scenes of her early youth, again
to dwell among her own people ; Dennington
House, the seat of Admiral and Mrs. Bury,
being situated on the opposite side of the
valley in the same parish.

In 1833, soon after he had planted his
garden and taken full possession of Tordown,

igo MEMOIR OF

the Perpetual Curacy of Swymbridge and Land-
key became vacant, and the benehce being in
the gift of Whittington Landon, then Dean of
Exeter, Russell was appointed to it in that year.

Appropriate enough was the title of " Per-
petual Curacy" to such a benehce ; for the
whole annual income derived by the incumbent
amounted to less than -f.iSo, out of which sum
he was not only required to provide and pay a
curate for the annexed parish of Landkey, but
to meet perpetual calls from a large population
of poor parishioners, who naturally in the first
place looked to him for help in their numerous
emergencies. To have called it a " living "
would have been simply a comedy ; for, when
these and various other liabilities incidental to
Church property had been deducted, the residue
might be reckoned as ////, or even as some-
thing less than that, for the incumbent to
live on.

Rightly, too, was it thus named in another
sense ; for there Russell was planted for forty-five
years — and so far he may fairly be considered
the Perpetual Curate of Swymbridge. During
that period, however, the parish has undergone
various and important changes for the better ;
its annexation with Landkey, for instance, has
been severed ; new schools have been established
and endowed ; while, at a distant hamlet called
" Traveller's Rest," a commodious chapel has

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 191

been built, the cost of which depended on means
mainly raised by Russell's exertions.

"When I was inducted," Russell writes, "to
this incumbency, in 1833, there was only one
service here every Sundav — morning and evening
alternately with Landkey, whereas now, I am
thankful to say, we have four services every
Sunday in Swymbridge alone." To this it may
be added that the fine old church of that
parish, described by Mr. Pearson, A.R.A., of
Harley Street, as " one of the most interesting
churches he ever saw," has been admirably
restored by that gentleman at a cost of nearly
£3,000.

Russell's great influence among the yeomen
and tenant-farmers of North Devon, and the
genial spirit with which he managed them, as
a Master of Hounds, has been already referred
to in a former chapter ; a kind word from him
doing more to secure their goodwill, and
promote the cause of fox-hunting, than the
Bank of England notes of less popular men.
But, if little has hitherto been said on the
subject of that inner circle — his own parish —
over which he has presided for so many years,
it must not thence be inferred that he lacked
at home the honour he found abroad ; for no
man has been more venerated, nay, loved, by
the poor among whom he has ministered than
Mr. Russell. And with good reason, too ; for,

192

MEMOIR OF

in season, or out of season, no one of them in
distress ever appealed to him in vain.

Nor did the wandering tribes of gipsies that
were wont to sojourn a while on the waste spots
in his parish — that race of Ishmael of whom it
is said, " his hand shall be against every man,
and every man's hand against him," form an
exception to that rule.

Instead of persecuting them as trespassers
and plunderers, by impounding their donkeys,
compelling them to strike their tents at a
moment's notice, driving them and their children
from pillar to post, and treating them more like
wolves than human beings, he never failed to
protect and befriend them whenever he thought
they were unmercifully or even unfairly used.
It was one of the old gipsy regulations of the
Kirk Yetholme tribe. Sir Walter Scott tells us,
to respect, in their depredations, the property
of their benefactors ; so these North Devon
gipsies, in return for Russell's kindness, were
always scrupulously careful to give him no
cause to complain of their presence, or regret
his own forbearance ; and whatever their short-
comings may have been with respect to other
property, his, at least, never suffered from their
depredations in any way. Often has he been
heard to say, "to the best of his belief he
never lost a head of poultry, nor even an eg
by the hands of the gipsies."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 193

But their appreciation of his kindness was
more than negatively shown ; they took active
steps and a signal opportunity of proving their
devotion to Russell by coming forward, of their
own accord, to protect his dwelling-house, when
they had reason to believe it was threatened
by burglars. A desperate gang had infested the
neighbourhood for some time, the houses of the
clergy having been made the chief object of
their depredations, far and near. At length it
was whispered about that Russell's, which had so
far escaped, would be the next to suffer, the
gipsies not being the last to hear the rumour.

The alarm, however, after some time passed
off ; and one day, as Russell was riding near
Stonecross, on his way to Exmoor, he met Seth,
the stalwart son of the King of the Gipsies,
and thus accosted him: "Is it true, Seth, that
you and your men, hearing that my house
was likely to be attacked, have been keeping
watch over it for many nights together?"

"Quite true, sir; and let me tell you, if we
had caught them on your premises, they would
never have gone home alive."

But, long before that event happened, Rus-
sell had secured the goodwill of the Romanies
for ever, by a somewhat risky transaction on his
part. He was riding down to Haccombe on a
visit to Sir Walter Carew, and passing by Part-
ridge Walls, near Eggesford, was hailed by a

o

194 MEMOIR OF

blacksmith, who, coming out of his forge, begged
his advice under the following circumstances :
"If you please, Mr. Russell," he said, "here's a
gipsy who wants to buy my black mare ; but he
has no money in his pocket, and wants me to
trust him. Now, I can't afford to part with her
and lose the money; so what had I better do?"

The gipsy was standing by at the time ;
and, as Russell fixed his gaze upon the open
and manly face of the swarthy young fellow, he
felt convinced by its expression that his pur-
pose was an honest one, and strong in that
conviction, he asked him his name, putting a
further question or two to him before he gave
the blacksmith an answer.

On hearing his name, Russell said " Then
you are the man who was encamped last year
with your wife near Iddesleigh, soon after vour
marriage ? "

" No, sir ; that was my brother."

"If I pass my word for the money, will
you pay it ? "

"Yes, sir, I will," he replied unhesitatingly.

"Then," said Russell, turning to the black-
smith, " you may look to me for the money ;
if he don't pay you, I will."

The blacksmith appeared satisfied ; but still
anxious to clench the nail properly, he warned
Russell that he certainly should come upon him
if the gipsy failed to keep his word.

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THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 195

About a week afterwards, Russell was again
passing the blacksmith's forge, and, reining up
his horse, he inquired if the money had been
paid by the gipsy.

"Yes, sir," he replied; "every penny of it."
In becoming " surety for a stranger," and
that stranger a gipsy and a horse-dealer, it is
only too wonderful that he did not "smart for
it;" but it was just the reverse: he gained by
that and other acts of kindness to his race, the
goodwill and gratitude of the whole "vagrant
train." Nor was their gratitude a matter of
sentiment only, for the King of the Gipsies, a
very old man, falling ill, and feeling that his
earthly hours were drawing to a close, expressed
a last wish that a charm he had long worn
and prized greatly — it was a silver Spanish
coin. Temp. Car. IIL Rex Hispaniae — should
be handed over to Mr. Russell, in token of the
sympathy he had ever shown to him and his
tribe. He left him also, as a legacy, his royal
rat-catcher's belt ; and on his death-bed sent
him a message begging he might be buried
in Swymbridge Churchyard by Mr. Russell
himself.

The patriarch's chief legatee could scarcely
do less than comply with so simple a request ;
and accordingly in that God's-acre, where " the
rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," he now
lies ; and there, to his memory, his people have

ig6 MEMOIR OF

erected a substantial monument, acknowledging
the receipt and marking the last resting-place
of his borrowed earth. He was buried on a
Saturday afternoon, Russell exacting a promise
from his son Seth, that he and his camp would
not move on the Sabbath-day. But, on the
following Monday, Russell, having occasion to
travel moorwards, found them on a waste place
near Stonecross, four miles from the encampment
they had occupied on the Saturday.

"How's this?" said he, hailing the young
gipsy, who stepped out to meet him; "you
promised me not to move till this morning ; and
you must have come here yesterday. I thought
I could trust you, Seth."

" So you can, sir ; but we couldn't help it.

Mr. " (a neighbouring magistrate) "sent a

constable to order us off directly, or he said we
should all be locked up in jail."

While they were yet speaking, a handsome
young gipsy woman, apparently in the bloom of
health and vigour, came forth from one of the
tents, and, with a prophetic air, said, " Good
morning, Mr. Russell ; the next person you bury
will be myself." And on that day week, as the
Swymbridge register will testify, he buried her.
She was the old king's daughter.

Now, Russell was neither a superstitious nor
a very credulous man — the Vicar of Wakefield
and he in that respect could scarcely be more

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 197

dissimilar ; but, from that day, he was tainted,
if not impressed, with the behef that something
of the Cassandra foresight — the power of looking
into futurity, that abyss of impenetrable darkness
— is possessed by the gipsy race ; at all events,
prevalent as such an idea has been among men
of the strongest minds — and their name is legion
— it may be doubted if many, or any, could give
better grounds for their phantasy than Russell.

Testimonials, in the form of silver goblets,
salvers, and such-like presents, are far from
being always a proof that the recipients have
really deserved them ; nor, though I^ussell has
had in his day a fair share of such honours,
would they now be referred to if one of a very
unusual and remarkable character had not been
conferred on him some time before he had
fairly settled at Tordown.

Mr. C. A. Harris, of Hayne, animated by a
strong and unqualified admiration of Russell's
powers, both as a huntsman and a man, con-
ceived the notion of doing him honour by a
plan of singularly novel and unique design. It
happened that, after a sharp burst with a fox
in that country, Russell ran him to ground in
an old quarry near Hayne, the excavation of
which had been long discontinued. Whether
he killed him or not, deponent sayeth not ;
but it is on record that from that date Mr.
Harris determined to convert the quarry into

igS MEMOIR OF

a rustic temple in honour of Russell and his
friends.

The quarry, overhung by old trees and
situated on a dry rocky bank, was first hollowed
out and paved with blocks of Dartmoor granite;
an entire British village, including two or three
kistvaens, being utilized for that purpose. Then,
round the circular enclosure were formed, out
of the same relics, twenty-two stalls, over each
of which the carved head of a fox and
an heraldic banner with a motto appropriate
to each occupant were displayed, the name
and residence of the knight being added
thereto.

A fete of inauguration, including all the chief
families of the district, took place at the time,
and from that day St. Hubert's Hall has been
the rendezvous of many a picnic party, attracted
thither no less by the picturesque scenery than
by the singular honour done to fox-hunting.

It was onlv a short time before Russell had
made up his mind to quit Iddesleigh, the fame
of his little pack having exceeded all expecta-
tion, that a break occurred in his hunting life,
which created a general sensation, not only
among his own devoted followers, but among
others who only knew of his intense delight
in the company of hounds. He parted with
the whole lot, lending them, at least for a
time, to Mr. T. Hext, of Restormel Castle, a

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 199

gentleman in whose hands he well knew they
would suffer no harm.

The pressure of a few friends, who probably
believed they were doing him good service, had
at length prevailed, and he was forced, as it
were, at the point of the bayonet, to adopt
their well-meant advice. But it was a trial and
a wound to his feelings, the keenness of which
Time, that soother of all sores, was ineffectual
to heal.

For two long years this interregnum — a
period of constrained inactivity and bondage, to
one of his muscular habits — weighed like an
incubus on his spirits, and clogged the wheels
of his life with the daily want of something
he missed, and of something more to do. The
tedium, in fact, had become almost unbearable,
when one day, as he was leisurely inspecting
the blossom on his apple trees and calculating
their autumn crop — reckoning his chickens be-
fore they were hatched — a surprise aw^aited him
for which he was little prepared.

Six and a half couple of strong young
hounds, a draft from the Vine, had been sent
to him from Mr. Harry Fellowes, with an in-
timation that "they had all passed the dis-
temper, and that no better blood had ever
tackled a Devonshire fox." "There they stood,"
said Russell, "alone in my kennel — the greatest
beauties my eye had ever rested on — looking

200 MEMOIR OF

up in my face so winningly, as much as to
say, 'Only give us a trial, and we'll not dis-
appoint you,' that I mentally determined to
keep the lot and go to work again."

But the same friends were still at hand to
counteract the temptation ; and so great was
the pressure put upon him, that again he con-
sented with a heavy heart to abandon his
design, and send the six and a half couple
after the rest down to Restormel.

Accordingly, they were actually taken out
of kennel to be so forwarded, when Mrs.
Russell, witnessing her husband's dejection at
parting with them, interposed and said, "Then
they shan't go, John, if you don't like it. I
don't see why you shouldn't have your amuse-
ment as well as other people." So back they
went into Russell's kennel, and from that day
he continued to keep hounds till 1871, when
he parted with his last pack to Mr. Henry
Villebois, of Marham Hall, Norfolk, a gentle-
man well known to the world as an old
master of hounds and a distinguished sports-
man.

It is related of the late eminent Bishop of
Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, that soon after his
appointment to that diocese in 1831, he was
travelling on a visitation tour through the north
of Devon, and seeing a pack of hounds in
full cry, and a large number of gentlemen in

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 201

black coats crossing the road in close pursuit,
he turned to his chaplain, and said in a
solemn tone, "Alas I this neighbourhood must
have been visited by some fearful epidemic.
I never saw so many men in mourning
before."

The chaplain knew the country better than
the bishop, and said nothing; while he identified
the mourners, one after the other, as brethren
of his own cloth, and personal friends. But
not long did that keen and far-sighted prelate
remain unacquainted with the habits of his
clergv in this respect ; and although for years
he did all in his power to discountenance and
suppress the practice, the love of hunting was
too strong even for him ; it still flourished like
a plant indigenous to the soil — deep-rooted and
ineradicable.

Russell, as might be expected, became the
especial object of his fatherly solicitude ; he
held what is called "a chapter living," and
besides, he was known by the bishop to be
an able and popular preacher, and as such, it
was only natural that his diocesan should be
doubly anxious lest the effects of his ministerial
eloquence should be weakened by his prominent
and avowed association with the hunting-field.
"As von live," would the bishop say, "so will
men believe ; and if the shepherd go astray,
well may the flock."

202 MEMOIR OF

But Russell, unable to see, if he endeavoured
conscientiously to fulfil his duty, that he was
either going himself or leading his flock astray
by indulging in his favourite recreation, with-
stood the bishop's monitions with a firm but
respectful attitude. After a time, however, his
lordship, a man of inflexible purpose, on re-
ceiving a serious charge against him, and
believing it to be well founded, pounced upon
Russell with the swoop of an eagle, and sum-
moned him and his accuser forthwith to the
palace at Exeter.

The charge was this, that he (Russell) had
refused to bury a child on the day named by
its parents, because it was his hunting-day.

Both parties being assembled before him,
with Mr. Secretary Barnes seated at a side-
table taking notes on the bishop's behalf, his
lordship recited the charge, and said gravely,
"Is that true, Mr. Russell?"

"Will your lordship permit me to ring the
bell?"

"Certainly," replied the bishop.

The bell was then rung, and a servant
making his appearance, Russell said, "Be so
good as to send in that woman who is now
waiting in the hall."

As she entered the room, Russell turned to
the bishop and said, "That is the mother of the
child, my lord. I requested her to accompany

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 203

the clerk of the parish (Wm. Chappie) to the
palace to-day, paid her tare, and here she is.
But, otherwise, I have not said one word to her
on the subject of the present inquiry. Your
lordship can put any question you please to
her."

The bishop then asked her if the charge
were true.

" Nit a word o't, my lord," she answered,
unhesitatingly.

He then requested her to state what had
taken place on the occasion, and given rise to
such a report.

She replied that her husband had asked Mr.
Russell to bury the child on a Wednesday or
Thursday, on whichever dav was most convenient
to him ; that he chose the latter, and buried the
child on that day.

"And pray," said the bishop, "were you at
all inconvenienced by keeping the body a day
longer ? "

" Not a bit o't, my lord ; us might have kep'
un till these day — 'twas but a poor atomy thing;"
meaning it was quite a skeleton.

The bishop, finding in this charge no prima
facie case made out against Russell, proceeded
at once to investigate other charges brought by
the same accuser ; who, as it turned out, had
been grossly misinformed on each and all ; and
as they, too, shared the like fate, falling to the

204 MEMOIR OF

ground without a tittle of evidence to support
them, but, on the contrary, with much to
disprove them, his lordship turned sharply on
him and said : " I am quite shocked to think,
sir, that you should have brought so many
charges against Mr. Russell, and been unable
to substantiate even one of them."

Much disappointed apparently at the result of
the inquiry, and still unwilling to relax his grasp
upon Russell, the bishop thus addressed him —

" But the fact still remains, I grieve to say,
that you, the incumbent of Swymbridge, keep
hounds, and that your curate " (who was also
present) "hunts with you. Will you give up
your hounds ? "

"No, my lord; I decline doing so."

He then turned to the curate and said, "Your
license, sir, I revoke ; and I only regret that the
law does not enable me to deal with the graver
offender in a far more summary way."

" I am very happy to find you can't, my
lord," said Russell, "and still happier to know
that I have done nothing in contravention of
the law, and that it protects me. May I ask
then, mv lord, if vou revoke Mr. Sleeman's
license, who is to take the duty at Landkey next
Sunday ? "

" Mr. Sleeman may do it."

"And who the following Sunday?" inquired
Russell.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 205

" Mr. Sleeman again," responded the bishop,
"if by that time you have not secured another
curate."

" I shall take no steps to do so, my lord ;
and, moreover, shall be very cautious as to
whom I admit into my church," replied Russell,
significantly.

It may be added that, immediately on hearing
the result of that conference, the parishioners
of Landkey sent up their churchwarden with
a "Round Robin" in Sleeman's favour; and
from that day he remained the curate of Landkey
till he married and removed to Whitchurch, a
family living near Tavistock, to which he
succeeded on the death of his father.

"But, my lord," continued Russell, "there
are many other clergymen in your diocese who
keep hounds " — here a groan from the bishop —
" why am I singled out among so many ? "

"Name them," said the bishop impatiently.

"That I decline doing," replied Russell, firmly.
Whereupon the whole party, to their great relief,
were dismissed from the episcopal presence.

Mr. Ralph Barnes, however, overtaking Russell
at the palace gate, stopped him by saying,
" You told the bishop there were other clergymen
in the diocese who keep hounds ; you are bound
to name them, sir."

"Well," said Russell, "as I believe that one
of them, at least, would not object to my doing

2o6 MEMOIR OF

so, I give you the name of the Rev. John
Froude, of Knowstone."

That gentleman, as the reader is aware, had
already given the bishop more than one backfall,
which neither he nor his secretary would be
likely to forget ; he had proved himself, in fact,
more than a match for both ; and his lordship
was far too clever a strategist to renew an attack
which, if unsuccessful, his good sense told him
would only weaken his episcopal authority.

It is no figure of speech to say that, at
that period, there w^ere probably a score of
clergymen who had packs of their own in the
diocese of Exeter ; three of whom kept fox-
hounds only, while the others hunted nominally
the hare.

So the bishop, in commencing, as he very
soon did, an energetic crusade against them,
had a host to deal with ; every one of whom,
not being a curate, would be likely to cry " no
surrender " — nay, to defend their right of re-
creation in that fashion to the last shot in
their locker.

There is a story of one — the vicar of St.
B. — an old friend of Russell's on whom soft
words and angry monitions were expended
alike in vain ; both being equally powerless to
bring him either to the bishop's palace or his
visitation courts. At length, his patience being
exhausted, his lordship issued a formal citation

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 20

/

commanding him, at his peril, to attend his next

triennial visitation at T , on a given day.

This step on the part of the bishop, it should
be premised, took place at the time when he
was engaged in the great Gorham trial ; a case
which the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council decided against him by an overwhelm-
ing majority, Knight Bruce being the only
legal member of the committee who did not

■-&'

agree with that decision. So marked a judg-
ment in favour of Mr. Gorham, who had been
the object of a long and harassing law-suit
without, as was then believed, due and reason-
able cause, gave rise, of course, to strong
comments on the part of the Liberal press ;
which, adding fuel to the fire, brought down a
certain amount of obloquy on the bishop's name.

Just at the time when the result of this trial
was in every man's mouth, the visitation at

T took place. On the appointed day, the

bishop having delivered his charge, the apparitor
then proceeded to summon the clergy severally
by name ; and as each came forward to answer
the roll-call, a pause and dead silence ensued
when the name of the vicar of St. B. was twice
called without any response.

"Is the churchwarden of St. B. present?"
inquired the bishop in a solemn voice.

On which a hne old-fashioned yeoman, of
portly figure and ruddy countenance, stalked up

2o8 MEMOIR OF

in his top-boots, and stroking his head deferen-
tially announced himself as the churchwarden
of St. B.

" I am very sorry to hear," said the bishop,
addressing him, "the sad things that reach me

respecting your vicar "

"My lord," said the yeoman, interrupting
him, "don't believe a word of them. I hear
strange tales about your lordship, but I don't
believe a word of them, not I."

Another story is told of the bishop and a
clergyman in his diocese, who, if not Russell
himself, must have been some one very like
him: "I am told, my lord," said the latter,
"that you object to my hunting."

"Dear me," said his lordship, with a per-
fectly courteous smile, "who could have told
you so? What I object to is that you should
ever do anything else."

Sarcasm could scarcely go farther.

I will now give a few extracts from the
letters of an old friend, Mr. Trelawny, of Cold-
renick, who writes thus respecting Russell and
his hounds : —

"The rising generation — the gormandising,
battue-shooter, and similar people — should learn
something of the heroes of old, who, alas ! are
dying out and leaving few behind them to fill
up the gaps. Where now are your Osbaldes-
tones, Kintores, Rosses, and such-like men?

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 209

"Even in fox-hunting, the number slain is
everything ; and owing to the number of foxes
bred, how seldom do we see a run of ten
miles from point to point, much less the
fifteen or twenty of olden times ; I have long
thought the nimiber spoils the sport.

"When, let me ask, will Lord see

such a fortnight as was once seen at Chulm-
leigh ; when with Carew's and Russell's hounds,
in twelve consecutive hunting-days, the shortest
runs were twelve miles from point to point, as
the crow flies ?

"But, in those days, five and twenty brace
killed by a four-day-a-week pack was voted
enough. Now, forsooth, if ' my lord ' cannot
count sixty brace of noses on his kennel door,
he is miserable."

Then, the nightly meetings after the day's
sport was over, Mr. Trelawny describes with a
few happy and graphic touches : —

"It would not be easy, nowadays, to muster
at a fox-hunting dinner such men as the two
Russells, father and son ; Sir John Rogers
(uncle to the present Lord Blachford), George
Leach, George Templer, and the late John
Bulteel. The pointed and playful sallies of
wit, with which the two ' latter enlivened the
meetings, combined w4th the racy anecdotes
and classical combats of Mr. Russell, sen., and
Sir John Rogers, who kept the ball going with

p

210 MEMOIR OF

unceasing gaiety, was indeed a treat never to
be forgotten.

" I remember that once, at Chulmleigh, we
had no less than six AE.F.H.'s present at one
dinner-party, viz., Newton Fellowes, who sat
next to me, John Bulteel, John King, Templer,
Sir Walter Carew, and Jack Russell. The first
stuck to his port like a man, flooring his two
bottles in true orthodox stvle ; while the others
drank punch — Henlev Rogers (the Admiral) and
Sir John mixing the 'materials ; ' Sir John of gin,
most patronized, and the Admiral of rum."

Again, Mr. Trelawny adds: "Whenever I
have sat at the same dinner-table with Jack
Russell he has been the life of the party."

The sale of horses by auction, which took
place after dinner, while the svmposium was at
its height, was often considerable, and added
no little to the amusement and sociality of the
Chulmleigh meetings. It was competent for any
one to put up his friend's horse without even
consulting him ; the rule being that the owner
should be allowed one bid only to protect him-
self. Consequently, many a man, bidding care-
lessly, too often found himself in the possession
of a steed or steeds he had not the remotest
intention of buying ; the owner declining to inter-
fere by a bid of his own with the last bidder.

A shilling being dropped into a wine-glass
and the horse named, the bidding was then

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 211

started by the auctioneer to the club — an office
ably, and often wittily, fulfilled by Mr. John
Dicker Fortescue, at Chulmleigh, and, at a later
date, by Mr. John King, of Fowclscombe, at
the South Molton meetings.

But Russell, never a good sitter round the
wassail-bowl, very rarely took part either as a
buyer or seller in these auctions ; for, at the
hour of their commencement, generally a late
one, he would, as a rule, steal away to rest,
enforcing, as he did so, his old maxim on those
who pressed him to stay : " Hunting, I tell you,
is worth any sacrifice ; and if you sit up and get
a headache, you can't thoroughly enjoy it. So,
by your leave, good-night, gentlemen."

CHAPTER X.

His Power in Distinguishing Hounds after once Hearing
THEIR Names — Parts with his Pack — Starts Again —
Kennel Management — Firing, etc. — Four Days'
Work — Mr. Houlditch as Whip — Kindness to a
Curate — A Scene between them at Lanacre Bridge
on the Moor.

Here's a health to all hunters of every degree.
Whether clippers, or craners, or hill-top abiders ;

The man that hates hunting, he won't do for me,
And ought to be pumped on by gentlemen riders.

Old Song.

The old saying that the " dog will have his
day," is a proverb by no means inapplicable to
the Chulmleigh Club ; for, after flourishing with
much vigour and success for more than twenty
years, symptoms of decay set in, and at length
became too apparent, when Mr. Templer, Sir
John Rogers, Mr. Bulteel, and other prominent
members ceased, one by one, to attend its
meetings.

The dog had had his day ; but still, fox-
hunting in the North of Devon not only suffered
no check on the ultimate dissolution of that
club, but, on the contrary, exhibited year after
year a strong and increasing vitality, striking
deep roots into the genial soil, and thriving

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 213

steadily and vigorously under the fostering care
of John Russell and Newton Fellowes.

The latter gentleman, indeed, besides main-
taining a noble pack of hounds on a grand
scale, and doing all in his power to promote the
cause of fox-hunting, not less bv territorial
influence than bv his own kind-heartedness and
hospitality, did more to improve the breed of
horses than any man in the West of England ;
Czar Peter, Escape, Colossus, Anacreon, and
Mufti forming a part of his stud, the last
being an invaluable hunter, bred by the Duke
of Bedford.

Partial, however, as Mr. Fellowes was to
thoroughbred stock, it was a favourite theory of
his that to breed a useful Devonshire hunter — a
weight-carrier, with powerful quarters, and airy
forehand — the produce of a thoroughbred mare
by a strong but light-actioned pack-horse was a
far better cross than the one so commonly
adopted by the farmers of that country, namely,
a cross from a pack-dam by a thoroughbred sire.
But on this point his own practice, it must be
remembered, was little in accordance with the
above theory ; as, indeed, might be expected
from so great a lover of blood-stock as the
Squire of Eggesford.

So much for Russell's neighbour ; now for
himself. The big, raking hounds in which Mr.
Fellowes so delighted, and which swept the

214 MEMOIR OF

moor with so grand a head, were in Russell's
estimation too big for the high banks and close
covers of that country. Still, their power of
driving on a half-scent, their indomitable per-
severance, and, above all, their tambourine,
sonorous tongues, which made the deep combes
of Devon ring again with applause, fairly
charmed Russell's heart. He could thus tell to
a vard how they were turning in cover ; and,
barring their unwieldy size, so far as his means
would permit, he did all he could to fashion his
own pack after that model. But, of course, it
was an unequal game between the pocket of
the feudal lord on one side, and that of the
perpetual curate of Swymbridge on the other !
And although the latter contrived, by hook or
by crook, to get together after a time quite as
killing a pack of hounds as any in England,
they were the gleanings only of many kennels,
and consequently, in point of uniformity and
grand appearance, were as unlike those of his
neighbour as a Satyr might be to Hyperion.

Still, "handsome is that handsome does,"
and year after year the sport Russell continued
to show, equalled at least, if it did not surpass,
that of any pack in the country. With him, in
those days, so long as a hound was a good
worker, it mattered little what his looks were.
" Let me go into a strange kennel," he would
say, "give me the pick of the pack and I'll take

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 215

first and foremost the plain-looking ones ; there
is sure to be good stuff in them, or they wouldn't
be there. The same may be said with regard
to the fair sex ; when vou see a plain woman
married, depend upon it, she has been chosen
for qualities which amply compensate for the
absence of mere beauty. Nature, you know, is
just, and ever loves a fair balance."

To ordinary observers, unaccustomed to
hounds, one hound is so like another that, unless
the colour were distinct, they would, in ten
minutes after their names were given, be unable
to say, "This is Dulcimer and that Dardan."
Nay, the great majority of men, who go on
hunting for season after season with the same-
pack, would be hopelessly at fault if called on
to point out a single hound by his right name,
often as he may have led the pack and they
heard his name. The features of a flock of
sheep — Southdown, for instance — are all alike
to men who are no shepherds ; nevertheless, to
those whose care thev are, the visage of each
sheep is as well known as that of every hound
in his pack to a kennel-huntsman.

Russell, however, had a marvellous power,
amounting almost to an instinct, in this respect ;
the gift of nature it was, beyond a doubt,
cultivated by long and familiar association with
hounds — a gift which enabled him, after he
had once seen a pack leisurelv drawn from one

2i6 MEMOIR OF

court into another, to distinguish them, and
for the most part caH them by their right
names when he met them in the field on the
fohowing day.

Will Long, huntsman to the Badminton
hounds under three Dukes of Beaufort, was so
impressed by this faculty of Russell's that it
quite astonished him. "I have been mixed up
with hounds all my life," said the veteran,
''but I never met any man like Mr. Russell.
Why, he was a couple of hours on our flags
one day, and the next, when we were out
hunting, he didn't want me to tell him the
name of this hound or that ; he knew them
almost as well as I did."

A curate of Russell's, in the absence of
the higher authority, was once consulted by a
gentleman, who had been recommended by
his physician to keep a pack of harriers.

"But," said he, "as I shall never remember
their names, nor know one hound from another,
if I get a whole pack at once, I have determined
to buy a couple at a time, and make their
acquaintance before I take in any more."

And this method of learning their names
he absolutely adopted.

During his long residence at Tordown,
Russell more than once parted with the greater
part of his pack, retaining only a few couples as
a nucleus for a fresh and stronger lot. On one

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 217

occasion some twenty couples had been drafted
for foreign service, and it is a fact that the
gentleman who became their master, and
hunted them himself for the whole season, knew
the name of but one of them — a hound called
''Primrose" — at the end of it, her colour being
different from that of the other hounds. Neither
did he trouble his head to inquire the history
of a single hound.

"Tvrell told me," wTote Mr. Russell to an
old friend, " that he gave him (the aforesaid
gentleman) a setter and a pointer in the month
of August, and that he could not, in the following
Christmas week, tell him the names of either,
nor which was the pointer and which the
setter, though he had shot over them for four
months."

Again, among the lot he took was a hound
called "Abelard," to whose classical name in
connection with the ill-fated " Eloise " — that
most exquisite poem — his reading had never
soared. Never, too, having noticed the name
in any list of hounds, he w^as sorely perplexed,
and came to the conclusion that some mistake
must have occurred, and that the hound's real
name was " Happy-Lord." " 'Tis a merry little
hound, you know, and that's why, I suppose,
Russell gave him that queer name," he said, as
he drew the hound with the point of his whip,
and distinctly called him " Happy-Lord."

2i8 MEMOIR OF

There is a story told of a fine old-fashioned
Devonshire squire, a friend of Russell's, long
since passed away, that having a fancy for
hounds' names terminating with " maid," he
gave orders to his huntsman to call the first
three bitches that came up from walk as
follows: — "Barmaid," "Dairymaid," and "Gany-
maid."

Nor is that a solitary instance of the confusion
created by the sex of Jove's cupbearer ; for
Russell relates that Dr. Troyte, of Huntsham,
having received a dog-hound, so called, from
Mr. Newton Fellowes, old Will Dinnicombe,
his huntsman, refused point-blank to call the
hound by that name ; declaring to his master
that "nobody, as he knowed, but Squire Fellowes
wi'd a ca'd a dog-hound Ganymaid ; and ef yeu
plaise, maister, us'll call un Ganyboy ; 'tis more
fitly like." Will had his way, and from that
day the hound went by the latter name.

Hounds, as we all know, are governed by
their likes and dislikes, their fancies and preju-
dices, very much in the fashion of human
beings ; but with this difference — the honest
brutes do not disguise their feelings, as the
animals gifted with reason are too apt to do.
Sir John Eardley-Wilmot in his very interesting
" Reminiscences of the late Mr. Assheton Smith,"
represents that eminent sportsman as having
possessed a "fascination" over hounds; while

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 219

thev, on their part, always evinced the strongest
attachment towards him.

" I recollect," relates one of his friends, " his
once having out live couples of drafts, whom
he had never seen before. Sharp, his kennel-
huntsman at that time, gave him the names
written down ; he then called each hound
separatelv, and gave him a piece of bread, and
then returned the list to the huntsman, saying,
' I know them now ; ' and so they did him. On
other occasions, when the fixture was ' Oare
Hill,' and the hounds were awaiting his arrival,
Dick Burton used to say, ' Master is coming, I
perceive by the hounds ; ' and this long before
he made his appearance. When he came within
three hundred yards, no huntsman or whip in
the world could have stopped the pack from
bounding to meet him. In the morning, when
let loose from the kennel, they would rush to
his study window, or to the hall door, and
stand there till he came out."

Mr, Musters, too, that paragon of gentlemen
huntsmen, although he seldom visited his kennel,
and saw little of his pack except in the hunting
field, was the very idol of his hounds ; nor,
associated as he was with the sport they enjoyed,
was such an attachment to be wondered at,
for he led them in the chase, and where their
nistinct failed, his judgment stepped in and
cheered them to victory.

220 MEMOIR OF

And for that very reason, no man in the
world was ever more loved by hounds than
Russell himself. "It isn't the man," as he
rightly maintained, " who feeds the hounds whom
they most like ; but the man who opens their
prison door, lets them out of kennel, and says,
' There, go forth and enjoy your liberty ; ' and
then helps them in their work."

On one occasion, owing to the inveterate
opposition he met with from a great landed pro-
prietor, whose tenants and keepers were ordered
to kill foxes over the whole extent of his wide
domain — a difference in politics being the chief
gravamen — Russell once more came to the
conclusion that, for the sake of peace, he would
give up his hounds, and again he parted with
a large draft.

Soon after this event he met Sir John
Duntze, who, hearing what had taken place,
seemed loth to believe the unwelcome news.
"You can't live without hounds, Russell — I
know you can't," said the incredulous baronet.
"Now," I'll make you an offer; I'll give you
five pounds, if you'll give me one for every
year that you don't keep hounds."

And Sir John was right ; for the following
season saw Russell reinforced with a strong
draft from the Hambledon, which, with old
Milliner and a few hounds of the Mercury
blood set him going again with renewed vigour.

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THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 221

That Milliner was a hound after Russell's own
heart. A light whimper from her — for she'd
occasionally speak on a drag — had a world of
meaning in it for his ears.

"We shall find in this cover," he would
say; "that's a tongue that never told a lie."

Then came the double-tongue, and the fox
was on his legs that instant.

His best friend at this time, both as a fox-
preserver and a liberal supporter of his hounds,
was Sir Arthur Chichester, of Youlston, who,
although still with his regiment, the 7th Dra-
goons, not only gave Russell the benefit of his
territorial influence, but aided him handsomely
with the sinews of war. Sir Arthur, in early
youth, had been well entered by his father,
who kept hounds at Youlston, and who, when
Mr. Templer's packs were broken up, was
lucky enough to secure a fair share of the
" Let-'em-alones" for his own kennel — the best
of which, however, fell soon afterwards into
Russell's hands.

The present baronet had succeeded to his
title and retired from the army for some time,
when Russell, paying him a visit on a beauti-
ful summer's morning, found him in the park
busily engaged in riding down the deer, which
he had made up his mind to get rid of and
kill, one by one, as they were wanted for his
own and his friend's use. His mode of operation

222 MEMOIR OF

being somewhat unique and original, Russell's
interest was much attracted by the exciting
scene. By the help of a second and even a
third horse, Sir Arthur was able to ride down
the stoutest buck ; and then with a lance, after
the manner of pursuing the boar in India, he
contrived to spear it with marvellous adroitness
and precision.

"I'll give you that fawn, Russell, if vou
can catch it," said the baronet, pointing out a
lively little fellow, galloping beside its dam.

In a moment Russell's horse was in full
swing ; and in less than ten minutes he had
captured his panting little prize, alive and
unhurt. He carried it to Tordown in his arms ;
and happening to have a hound-bitch, called
Cloudy, whose puppies had been destroved on
that very day, he put the fawn to her, and after
a brief but cautious introduction, had the satis-
faction of seeing the pair nestling together on
the most intimate terms. This fawn, brought
up among the hounds, and subject like them
to kennel discipline, waxed after a time into a
fine, healthy, and bold animal ; so bold, that it
would knock the hounds off the benches without
ceremony, in order to get at and cuddle by the
side of its foster-mother. But alas ! like most
pets, it came to an untimely end ; the hounds
had been taken out of kennel, and the poor
fawn, in rushing after Cloudy and attempting to

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 223

jump through a gate, dashed its brains out
against the bars and died on the spot. Will
Rawle — Russell's henchman, kennel-man, and
faithful servant for forty years — was inconsolable,
declaring he would rather have lost his Christmas
pig than that fawn.

Perhaps at no period of Russell's life was
his pack stronger, or more efficient, than about
the year 1840 ; but as, with the exception of a
few hounds bred by himself from the old Stover
strain, it consisted mainly of drafts from other
kennels, the lot as a whole were, of course,
unlevel and ill-matched, and on that account
would scarcely have passed muster at a flag-
scrutiny even in those days ; still, if taken
individually, every hound had a character of his
own, and bore the tower-stamp impressed on
his face, and, we may be very sure, was fairly
entitled to his daily meal. Deeds, and not
looks, were the prime consideration ; for, as in
the celebrated Tom Hodgson's case, " no
Modishes and Merkins were kept, because they
were too handsome to hang, and too bad to
give away ; but almost every hound looked like
his master, as if he knew how to kill a fox."

It is almost needless to add that, notwith-
standing the care of the kennel-man already
referred to, the condition of his hounds was
closely and constantly supervised by Russell
himself ; nor is it too much to say that, the

224 MEMOIR OF

constitution of each individual hound being so
well-known to him, he could tell to a scruple the
proportion of broth, or flesh, which should be
given to one and not to another. That, in fact,
was the great secret of their killing and endur-
ing powers ; they were always up to the mark,
and consequently far superior in condition to
the wild animal they were called upon to hunt.

" I was in the kennel with him on one
occasion," records an old curate, ''when, pointing
to a hound with a long face and a high crown,
called Gainer, he said, 'That hound has been
injured in the stifle, but he's so good on the
line that I can't afford to draft him ; hre is the
only remedy, and the sooner it's done the
better."

" So, suiting the action to the word, he
ordered Will Rawle to couple up the hound
and lead him to a post in the courtyard. On
that post, about four feet from the ground, was
a strong iron ring, through which the chain-
couple was passed, and the hound hauled up
till he stood almost erect on his hind legs, w4th
his head close to the post, around w4iich the
couple was then secured. The iron being
quickly heated, Russell caught the hound by the
hind foot, straightened the leg, and performed
the operation with the most artistic skill in
something less than one minute. The scoring
was perfect, and he went through the whole

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL 225

of it without a particle of help from Will or
myself.

**A day or two afterwards," continues the
same informant, "we were jogging together to
a meet at Yard Down Gate," the pack following
leisurely along, some almost under the stirrup,
and a few at the tail of Russell's horse. He
was chatting merrily, as usual, but, at the same
time, his eye never ceased travelling from one
hound to another, as if he were studying the
condition and fitness of every hound in the
pack for the day's work before them. Suddenly
he stopped his horse, dismounted, and handing
the rein to me, said, ' Lavender's not quite
right ; hold my horse an instant while I look
her over.'

"He then examined her eyes, and before I
could understand what he was about to do,
pulled a lancet from his pocket and bled her
on the spot. A man we met soon afterwards was
then sent back with her to Tordown.

"Again, the meet being on this occasion at
the Mervin's Arms, Russell, on looking over
a young black-and-white hound called Waverley,
recently sent to him from a distance, discovered
him to be unbranded.

"'This won't do,' he said, 'we shall pro-
bably run to-day from Whityfield to the deep
covers of Henstridge, above Berry-Narbor, and
if we loose that hound we shall never see him

Q

226 MEMOIR OF

again.' He then jumped off his horse, took the
hound between his knees, and drawing a small
scissors from his pocket-book, he instantly and
most cleverly cut out a great R in the hair of
Waverley's ribs. 'There,' he said, 'no matter
where he turns up now, he'll be sent back to
my kennel for fifty miles round.'

"True enough, we found in Whityfield,
Leveller, Gameboy, and Falstaff breaking almost
on his back, as the fox, a white-tagged old
Hector, put his head straight for Henstridge,
where, after a sharp burst, he saved his brush
by going to ground. Found No. 2 at Arlington ;
ran to Youlston, Cocksley, Pigslake Wood, crossed
the river, and killed him by moonlight in a
cottage above Goodleigh. The whole village,
with the parson at their head — one of that good
old sort yclept Harding, of Upcot — turning out
to greet Russell and welcome his field."

" But Russell, too, as well as his hounds, must
have been in fine form at that time, or the
hardihood even of his frame could never have
stood the strain imposed on it by the four
following days' work, which, by an old letter of
his, is thus recorded : " I left this house (Tor-
down) on one eventful morning, rode to Iddes-
leigh (twenty miles), whither I had sent the
hounds the evening before, found a fox and
killed him during one of the most awful storms
of thunder, lightning, and rain I ever saw.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 227

Scent breast high from first to last. I then
rode to Ash, Mr. Mallet's place, dined there,
and danced afterwards till one o'clock ; went to
bed and rose again at three ; pulled on my
top-boots and rode down to Bodmin, just fifty
miles, and met Tom Hext's hounds about five
miles from that town. Found a good fox and
killed him ; dined w'ith my old friend Pomeroy
Gilbert, and again did not get to bed — much
against my rule — till the little hours. Rested
the next day, if walking several miles to a
country fair could be called resting ; then off next
morning at three ; rode back to Iddesleigh.
took out the hounds, found a fox in Dowland,
and killed him close to the Schoolmaster Inn
in Chaw^leigh parish, twelve miles as the crow
flies. I then turned my horse's head for Tor-
down, and was sitting down to dinner at my
ow^n table, and all the hounds home, at six
o'clock, the distance being fully twenty miles
from the said Schoolmaster Inn to this house."

Owing to a succession of bad harvests
throughout the land, Irish oatmeal, the staple
food of hounds, had risen about this time to a
price unheard of since the war with France ;
and it was with no little alarm that many an
M.F.H. found himself compelled to give ;£i6, or
even £iS per ton, for w^hat he could have
purchased aforetime at the lower sum of ;^'i2.
Not a few, accordingly, with an eye to economy,

228 MEMOIR OF

turned their attention to Indian meal, hoping
to find in it, though a cheaper article, still a
satisfactory substitute for the more expensive
food. But experience soon proved that, much
as it was at first vaunted, it lacked that rare
muscle-giving aliment, that stand-by quality, so
bountifully possessed by sound oatmeal.

Russell never would try it during the
season ; but, knowing that a friend of his had
done so, and hearing that his hounds rarely
ended with a kill, he exclaimed, ** No wonder ;
it's that Indian meal that does it. The hounds
are as good as they ever were ; but fed on that
wishy-washy 'trade,' I'll defy them, or any
hounds on earth, to kill a good fox."

Russell's independence in the field with
respect to the services of a regular whip having
been already alluded to, it may be mentioned
that enthusiastic, amateur aspirants would now
and again volunteer to act in that capacity,
and take upon themselves the full duties of a
hired servant. One especially, Mr. Houlditch, a
Somersetshire gentleman, hearing almost fabulous
tales of the sport shown by the N.D.H., migrated
from his own into Russell's country, and at
once offered his services, proposing to act as
field-adjutant, and undertake, as far as his ability
would permit, the ordinary work of a regular whip.

The offer at the time happened to be most
opportune, and was gratefully accepted on

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 229

Russell's part ; but, alas ! on the very first day
that Mr. Houlditch appeared in his official
capacity, Russell discovered, by the most un-
mistakable signs, that his knowledge of the
" noble science " was simply that of the veriest
tyro, and that in reality he knew just as much
as Billy Button, or a Tooley Street tailor, might
be supposed to know about such matters. Still
Mr. Houlditch, in spite of all difficulties, perse-
vered, paying the closest attention to the lessons
— nay, it may be said, the lectures — which his
chief so frequently bestowed on him, not in the
field, but on returning from their day's work.
Many a time was it said to Russell, "Do what you
will, you'll never make a sportsman of Houlditch ;
he hasn't it in him, and is too old to learn."

But so long as the pupil was anxious to
improve, so long did his master do his utmost
to instruct and encourage him in the sylvan
duties he had undertaken to perform, till at
length, after a season or two of continuous drill,
the perseverance of both was crowned with
complete success ; and it must have been as
gratifying for Russell to say as for the other to
hear, that " Houlditch understood his work as
well as most men, and had become a most useful
and obliging whip." He served in that capacity
for six consecutive years, and when he left
created a blank which Russell was never able
in like fashion to till again.

230 MEMOIR OF

Much has been said of the active service
which Russell expected from his curates in the
hunting-field, when parochial duties did not
absolutely require their attendance at home ;
but, of course, some of the stories told in that
respect were utterly untrue. One, for instance,
describes him as testing the voices of two rival
applicants aspiring to become his curate, by
making them give "view-holloas," and then
accepting the one whose voice sounded the
most penetrating and most sonorous — a capital
story, no doubt, for those who cultivate charity
by believing and circulating such tales ; but, as
a matter of fact, it is one which rests on as
baseless a fabric as the fleecy clouds that float
through the sky.

That he never objected to the company and
help of his curate in the hunting-field is quite
true, provided always that the parochial duty,
for which he was responsible, was first attended
to and duly fulfilled ; nay, if his curate had a
taste for hunting, Russell would even encourage
him to enjoy the pastime, maintaining, with
Dr. Watts, that Satan would find him something
worse to do, if he remained idle at home.

The following anecdote, however, is beyond
all doubt a true one, and shall be given in the
very words of an ear-witness, the late Rev.
William Hocker, vicar of Buckerell, who related
it to the writer of this memoir soon after the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 231

incident occurred. Mr. Hocker was standing
at a shop-door in Barnstaple on a market-day,
when Will Chappie, the parish clerk of Sw^m-
bridge, entered the shop, and while his business
was being attended to, the grocer thus interro-
gated him : —

"Well, Mr. Chappie, and have 'ee got a
coorate vet for Swymbridge ? "

" Not vet, sir — master's nation partic'ler ;
'tisn't this man nor 'tisn't that as'll suit un ; but
here's his advertisement " (pulling out a copy
of the NortJi Devon Joiinial), " so I reckon he'll
soon get one now.

"'Wanted, a curate for Swymbridge; must
be a gentleman of moderate and orthodox
views.' "

" Orthodox I Mr. Chappie ; what doth he
mean by that?" inquired the grocer.

"Well," said the clerk, in some perplexity,
knowing the double nature of the curate's work,
secular as well as sacred, " I can't exactly
sav ; but I reckon 'tis a man as can ride pretty
well."

An old curate of his gives the following
grateful but very brief record of the kindness
and hospitality he received both from Mr. and
Mrs. Russell during his residence at Swym-
bridge : — " My first reception by Russell I shall
never forget. I had ridden a long distance, the
latter part of it by devious lanes and countless

232 MEMOIR OF

cross-roads, which, as they were all strange to
me, perplexed and jaded me far more than
even the length of the ride, when at nightfall I
reached the modest lodgings taken for me in
the village at Swymbridge. My landlady, Mrs.
Burgess, a most respectable woman, besides
two sets of apartments let to myself and
another gentleman, dear old Walter Radcliffe,
kept also in the same house a general shop,
where any article of food, from a double
Glo'ster to a flitch of bacon, or a penny loaf
to a packet of tea, might be had at a moment's
notice ; so that for the cravings of nature the
wherewithal was at hand to satisfy my utmost
wants. I had just quitted a happy home,
broken up by my family migrating to Dresden
for education ; consequently, notwithstanding the
kindly manner of my hostess, and her anxiety
to make me comfortable, a sense of loneliness
crept over me such as I had not felt for many
a year, and I turned away from the savoury
broiled rasher set before me as if I had been
a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and hated the
sight of the unhallowed food. At that moment
a man's voice at the door aroused my attention
— he was inquiring for me — and before I could
rise from my seat Russell stalked in, grasped
my hand without ceremony, and bid me wel-
come to his parish in so cheery a tone that
in an instant my depressed spirits, rising like

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 233

a mist in the morning, took wing and passed
away.

"'Holloa,' he said, looking at the table, 'this
won't do ; you must come up and dine with us.
Come as you are, plain fare and no formality.'

" I pleaded the necessity of unpacking my
portmanteau, and devoting a few minutes to
the Graces ; but he wouldn't hear of it.

" ' No,' he said, ' come along ; you're quite
smart enough. Mrs. Russell won't look at your
coat, if you'll only eat a good dinner.'

" The invitation, I felt, was tantamount to
a command, and accordingly, without further
objection, I rose and obeyed.

"The dinner, an ample one, was yet sim-
plicity itself — a cod's head and shoulders, the
produce of Barnstaple Bay, a haunch of Exmoor
mutton, hung to an hour ; then an apple
pudding, flavoured with lemon peel, and boiled
to perfection. ' " Carpe diem,'' which, freely
translated, means "keep cutting,"' said Russell,
calling for a hot plate, and inviting me to take
another slice of the delicious moor mutton. He
then asked how I had reached Swymbridge,
and by what route I had come.

" ' Across country,' I replied ; ' by way of
Cobbaton and Umberleigh Bridge.'

" ' An awkward line for a stranger,' he re-
marked. ' But you rode, of course ; and pray
what's become of vour horse ? '

234 MEMOIR OF

" ' Gone to the village inn,' I said, ' where
I saw him fed and bedded up for the night.
He's my sole stand-by ; does the double work
of hack and hunter, so I hope will be well
cared for, as I value him greatly.'

'' ' Then he musn't stay there another minute,
or, in all probability, he'll be kicked by some
farmer's horse before the night's over,' said
Russell, rising to ring the bell, and giving orders
that the horse should be fetched and brought
to his stable at once. 'To-morrow,' he continued,
' you'll have no difBculty in finding a quiet
little box in the village, and you must go to
Barnstaple next market day and buy your hay
and corn, for at Swymbridge you'll get none.'

*' The next morning, as I was about to sit
down to breakfast, to my great surprise a cart,
heavily laden with hay and corn, stood at the
door of my lodgings, and before I could make
any inquiry as to its ownership, the man in
charge, seeing me at an open window, thus
addressed me : ' If yeu plaise, sir, this here hay
and woats be for yeu, \vi' maister's compli-
ments.

" Had I possessed the cap of Fortunatus, I
could scarcely have wished for a more welcome
gift, as the business of buying good upland hay
and old oats in Devonshire, at that season of
the year, was, as I knew from experience, a
most difficult job. Now, however, through

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 235

Russell's kindness and liberality, I had ample
time before me to look around and suit myself
in that respect. But I will not recount the
similar acts of kind consideration in various
ways, especially in those of hospitality, which
I received from him and Mrs. Russell during
that happy and unclouded period of my early
life passed at Swymbridge.

** Once, and once onlv," continues the same
curate, " did a slight skirmish take place between
us, and that was on the wild open moor near
Lanacre Bridge. It was a cold biting day in
February. We had found in Twitchen Town
Wood, and the hounds with a grand scent,
having brought their fox up to the bridge, had
there come to a check. A hound called Castor,
however, hitting the fox under the archway
of the bridge, through which the flood had
carried him, dashed into the angry river, and
by some means became unable either to pass
under the arch or land on the opposite bank.
* The hound will be drowned ; jump in and
save him,' shouted Russell to me, in a state
of the wildest panic ; ' jump in, I say.'

" But, in truth, I saw no danger for the
hound ; whereas a plunge into the roaring Barle,
forbiddingly keen as the wind blew, was likely
to be one for me. I hesitated for an instant,
and as I did so Castor struggled out, and, like
a brave hound, threw his tongue manfully on

236 REV. JOHN RUSSELL

the opposite side of the river. Directly after-
wards, on my rating a hound for some fault
he had committed, Russell turned sharply round,
and said, " That's a puppy, let him alone ; don't
rate him, or you'll ruin him.'

" ' Don't speak to me in that way,' I said,
fairly roused this time by his peremptory manner,
' or I'll never turn a hound for you again.'

" It remains to be added that we killed our
fox soon afterwards ; and no two men could
have jogged home together on better terms
than Russell and I did after that event. My
act of rebellion, however, was not forgotten by
him ; for to this day, when the hounds pass
near Lanacre Bridge, he is wont to tell the tale
with infinite zest and humour, pointing out the
very spot to those around him, ' Where Davies
mutinied ; threatening, if I dared to rate him,
that he'd never turn a hound for me again.' "

CHAPTER XI.

The South Moltox Club — Stopping out the Foxes —
" Beatrice AND Barbara" — Russell and Radcliffe's
Stories — The "Little Speckletv Hen" — Russell's
Ducking in the Barle — Mallard and Cat snapped
up by Foxes in Chase.

" Glorious West country ! . . . \ou must not despise their
accent, for it is the remains oi' a purer and nobler dialect than
our own ; and you will be surprised to hear me, when I am merr\-,
burst out into pure unintelligible Devonshire : when I am very childish,
my own country's langfuagfe comes to me like a dream of old
da)^s ! . . ." — Charles Kingslev.

In 1845-46 a project for starting a new fox-
hunting club in the north of Devon, the rules
and arrangements of which should be identical
with those of the old Chulmleigh meetings, being
warmly approved by Russell, it was resolved
to establish it forthwith at South Molton, that
town being a convenient centre for the accom-
modation of all parties. Accordingly by Russell's
invitation, the packs of Sir Walter Carew
and Mr. Trelawny were appointed, together
with his own, to hunt the country for a whole
fortnight in spring and autumn ; while the
George Inn was fixed upon as head-quarters

238 MEMOIR OF

for the mess and the numerous hunting
men who, it was expected, would flock to the
httle town from all parts of Devon and Corn-
wall,

Nor was this expectation a delusive one.
Throughout the county, north and south, the
new club was looked upon as a kind of
phoenix, rising, with renewed vigour in its
wings, from the smouldering ashes of the
Chulmleigh Club ; the triumvirate alone, to
whom its revival was due, namely, Mr. Russell,
Sir Walter Carew, and Mr. Trelawny, of
Coldrenick, being an ample guarantee that
success would certainly follow upon such a
combination.

Accordingly, on the occasion of the meet-
ings, not only were the country-houses in the
neighbourhood thrown open to friends from a
distance, but every available bed and stall in
South Molton was secured for weeks before-
hand by gentlemen who, preferring the freedom
of a hostelry to private hospitality, deemed it a
matter of loyalty to the club to live at head-
quarters and support the mess.

Foxes, as Russell well knew, were just
sufficiently plentiful, though not one too many
to warrant the strain on his country necessi-
tated by two exotic packs, which, besides his
own, were about to hunt it for twelve days,
twice in the year. But that it was so stocked

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 239

appeared a marvel to all ; for, occupying in the
very heart of it an extensive area, comprising
many square miles of cultivated farms, moors,
and deep woodlands, in which game was
strictly preserved, dwelt a magnate of the
land, and one whose hostility, on political
grounds, Russell had been unfortunate enough
to provoke.

Tenants and keepers, accordingly, had re-
ceived peremptory orders not only to forbid
Russell from drawing the covers, but to wage
an exterminating war against foxes, old and
young, by trapping and digging them out at all
seasons of the year ; still, notwithstanding that
edict, Russell found means to keep up a fair
stock on every side of that wide domain —
indeed, now and again, the very tenants them-
selves hesitated not, on discovering a litter laid
up on the grounds, to take measures for securing
its safety, either by smoking the earth, or warn-
ing some friend to fox-hunting that the sooner
the cubs were disturbed the better it would be
for their lives.

About a month before the first meeting of
the club at South Molton, in November, 1845,
a farmer living near Exford, a parish in Somer-
setshire beyond the left bank of the Barle,
foreboding ill to a litter he had long guarded as
the apple of his eye, wrote a letter to Russell,
beseeching him, in short but pithy terms, to

240 MEMOIR OF

bring his hounds over and scatter the cubs. It
ran thus : —

" Honor'd Sir,

" Do ee plaise bring up the dogs first
chance ; us a got a fine Utter, sure enough, up
to HoUacomb brake. They'm up full-growed, a
month agone ; and last night was a week, what
must em do but kill Mistiss' old gander &
seven more wi' un — her's most gone mazed
owing to't — so do ee plaise come up Sir and gi
'em a rattle — they'm rale beauties, they be, as
ever you clapped your eyes on."

Russell lost no time in obeying the summons;
he went off alone, slept, and kennelled the
hounds for the night at Hawkridge Rectory,
the hospitable residence of the Rev. Joseph
Jekyll, a gentleman pronounced by Russell to
be one of the finest and hardest riders in that
or any other country ; a direct descendant, too,
of the eminent anti-Jacobite judge, and nephew
to the witty lawyer of that historic name. The
digression may not be an unwelcome one, if an
example be quoted of the rare readiness with
which the latter could toss off impromptu verses
at the spur of the moment ; for Russell is pro-
bably the only man who could remember the
humorous lines here given, and which, so far
as he was aware, were never published.

Towards the end of last century, Carry Ourry,
a great Cornish beauty, and an ancestress of the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 241

Trebys, of Goodamoor, had walked into the
Assize Court at Bodmin, when Jekyll, catching
sight of her, wrote the following lines and
handed them up to the judge : —

"My lord, and gemmen of the jury,
I come to prosecute before ye
A noted felon, I'll assure ye,
Known by the name of Carry Ourry ;
Known by a guilty pair of eyes.
Known by a thousand felonies.
Known to push her crime still further.
Guilty of killing, stabbing, murder ;
But to be brief and cut it shorter,
I'll but indict her for manslaughter."

The next morning, crossing the Bade at
Tarrsteps, and the wild heathery waste lying
between it and Exford, Russell threw his hounds
into the cover indicated by the farmer : in one
minute a lot of cubs were on their legs ; then
followed a crash, till, on every side, the whole
cover seemed to be on fire. A brace of cubs
soon succumbed, and their brushes being handed
to the farmer, he carried them home in triumph
to his w^ife, declaring that now she would have
no further grievance to complain of, " leastways,
from they two foxes."

But Russell had not finished with them yet ;
after a short pause, casting his hounds round
the outside of the cover, they dropped their
sterns and away they went, pelting like a storm
of hail after the old dog, twelve miles straight

R

242 MEMOIR OF

on end, over the wildest part of Exmoor. On
reaching the Bray covers they were hard on his
back ; but Russell, fearing a change, deemed it
advisable to stop the pack ; and so the gallant
fellow lived to fight again another day : that
day, however, was not long deferred.

In the following November the new club
met for their fortnight's sport at South Molton ;
and Yard Down being the first fixture, Mr.
Trelawny's hounds proceeded to draw Sherra-
combe Brake, hard by. Russell, from a spot
of open ground on the opposite side of the
combe, stood watching the action of the hounds
intently, as, without a vestige of drag, Limpetty,
the huntsman, was doing his utmost to encourage
them to face the strong gorse that opposed their
entrance at every point. At length he passed
on to draw another cover ; but Russell stopped
him, shouting at the top of his voice —

" You've left that fox behind you, Limpetty ! "

"No, I ha'nt," responded he, in the habitual
blunt, outspoken style that characterised the man.

"Yes, you have," repeated Russell; "not a
hound has touched the comb of that hedge, and
he may be there."

At that moment a hound spoke, and almost
before Limpetty could look round, a screeching
"tally-ho" from one of the field announced
a view. The fox was on foot, a flyer, too,
beyond all doubt, the next instant he was out

^^■^^

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^

Q
u
fa

a

H
D

I-)

hJ
_)
M
en
en
D

en

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 243

on the open moor, a good lanyard clear of the
brake.

"That's the same grey fox — I know it is,"
said Russell to Mr. Houlditch, who was standing
near him at the tmie ; " the very fox I brought
away from Exford, twelve miles off, a month ago."

Houlditch shook his head.

"I own, Russell," said he, "you know a
good many things ; but as to knowing that to
be the same fox you brought from Exford, you
must pardon me if I venture to doubt it."

It would have taken Russell more time than
was then convenient to explain his reasons for
expressing that opinion ; he knew, too, it would
have been a mere waste of words on his part,
and that Houlditch would only have exemplified
the old saying —

"He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still."

So, turning to Mrs. Russell, who was mounted
on her favourite horse, called "The Tickler,"
he said —

" Come along, Penelope, he's going for
Whitefield Down, and catch them we must, or
we shall never see them again."

Away they went up wind and over the hill
to Sittaborough, when, the pace being tremen-
dous, the fox turned and sank the wind down
for Simonsbath, then on to the Warren, Badge-
worthy, and up to Gallon House, where he broke

244 MEMOIR OF

out over the moor wall, a boundary fence big
enough to stop the course of a native red deer.

And now it was that Mrs. Russell, a wee bit
anxious, perhaps, to rival the renown so justly
earned by Mrs. Horndon as a forward and
intrepid rider, not only " set " that lady, but
every man in the field : for, putting Tickler
without a moment's hesitation at the formidable
barrier, and landing safely over the deep trench
on the off side, away she went with the leading
hounds for a considerable distance, literally alone
in her glory. They were then within less than
a mile of the very cover, near Exford, from
which Russell had brought the dog-fox in the
previous month ; and he was now pointing
directly for it, when a terrific shower of hail
and rain fell like a waterspout around them,
washing away every particle of scent, and com-
pelling the baffled hounds to put down their
noses in vain.

So, this Hector of the moor, having once
beaten Russell's hounds, and again, by the in-
tervention of Jupiter himself, triumphed over
the crack pack of the South, was toasted that
night, during the symposium at the George Inn,
with mighty enthusiasm ; the identity of the
gallant animal being no longer questioned even
by the doubting Houlditch.

During these meetings at South Molton,
which continued to flourish under Russell's

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 245

immediate auspices for many successive years, it
was admitted on all sides bv the Nestors of the
field, that the sport shown was fullv equal to
that of the most brilliant period of the Chulmleigh
Hunt ; and that it was due, in no small measure,
to a plan adopted by him with respect to the
main earths in the neighbourhood of the moor,
there can be no doubt. About a week before
each meeting, Will Rawle, his trusty kennel-
man, was regularly sent with a couple of terriers,
to rattle and turmoil every stronghold visited
by the foxes, far and near. That being thoroughly
done, a few drops of a certain strong-scenting
liquid were sprinkled over the entrance of each
earth, which was then stopped. The name of
the liquid neither Russell nor Will Rawle would
ever divulge ; but its object was to prevent the
foxes from digging themselves in again, before
the meeting had come to a close. Directly
afterwards, however, the earths were unstopped,
and allowed to assume, as they soon did, their
pristine and natural appearance.

The success of the plan exceeded even
Russell's expectations ; for, however stormy the
nights might have been, the foxes were not
only to be found above ground, but were
undoubtedly much bothered by the blockade so
ubiquitously maintained against them. They
proved this unmistakably, by the strange line
of country they were so often driven to take —

246 MEMOIR OF

a great advantage to the hounds — which, day
after day, whether Russell's, Trelawny's, or Sir
Walter Carew's rarely returned to their kennels
without showing a fine wild run, and crow^ning
it with a kill.

One day, a brace of foxes were found by
Sir Walter Carew's hounds, the first in Twitchen
Town Wood, the second near Lanacre Bridge,
and both were killed, the latter in forty, the
former in thirty-six minutes, without the shadow
of a check in either case from first to last, every
inch of the run being over the wild rough
heather of Exmoor ; some idea may thus be
formed of the style of sport that, as a rule,
marked the South Molton meetings at that period.

Speaking of that day in particular. Sir Walter
Carew, a well-known man with the Quorn about
that time, and a rare judge of hound's pace,
was wont to declare that he had never seen
tw^o such brilliant runs in one day, even in
Leicestershire, or any other country,

Russell would have almost given the eyes
out of his head for a couple of bitches called
Beatrice and Barbara, which, figuring in front
and always abreast with the leading hounds,
distinguished themselves greatly in both runs.
Scarcely above twenty-one inches in height,
they were yet models of strength, length, and
symmetry ; dark tan, or, rather, hare-pied in
colour, and never idle, they were, as Russell

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 247

had already discovered, equally good all round,
in chase, line-hunting, and road work.

A story went the rounds, but how it came
to be known will ever remain a mystery, that
he was heard to whisper the names of Beatrice
and Barbara in his dreams that night. It was
therefore shrewdly suspected that his object
was not altogether a disinterested one, when,
jogging alongside John Beale a few days after-
wards, he was reported to have said, " What a
pity 'tis, John, those hounds are not an inch or
two higher ; Sir Walter, I know, likes a level
lot, and the pack, I think, would look all the
better if he were to draft them."

"What! draft they tew beauties, Mr. Rissell?"
replied the veteran ; ** nit he, if I know'th it.
Why, they'm the flower of the flock, they be,
and will do more work in a day than some
hounds in a w4ck."

Sir Walter, too, prized Beatrice and Barbara
as the pearls of his pack ; but not more, perhaps,
for their intrinsic merits than for the blood they
carried in their veins. He had bred them him-
self at Haccombe, and being from his Bashful
by Mr. Bulteel's Justice, a son of the famous
Beaufort hound of that name, they had come
from a sort stout as steel on both sides, and
real hard drivers, even on a half scent. Con-
sequently, the Furrier blood could scarcely have
been more valued by Osbaldeston, nor that of

248 MEMOIR OF

the Warwickshire Trojan by Mr. Corbet, than the
strain of those hounds bv Sir Walter Carew.

The South Molton Ckib acquired in a short
time immense popularity throughout the county,
and the names of the members and visitors who
supported its merry meetings are for the most
part included in the following list : Sir Walter P.
Carew, Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir John Duntze,
Messrs, Charles Trelawny, J. Russell, Frederick
and Charles Knight, William Horndon, James
and Henrv Deacon, John King, of Fowels-
combe, William and Henry Raver, T. Carew, of
CoUipriest, W. B. Fortescue, William Erving S.
Clark, Walter C. Radcliffe, R. S. Bryan, Joseph
Jekyll, Colwell Roe, Stucley Lucas, H. Tyrrel,
G. Woodleigh, Rev. George Owen, Chichester
and Chichester Nagle, Houlditch, Sleeman,
E. W. L. Davies, William Hole, Courtenay
Bulteel, Kingson, W^illesford, Edwin Scoble,
Bassett, Pinkett, Sherard Clay, J. Bawden,
Reginald James and his brother, Karslake, Dene,
two Riccards, and Bury Russell.

To this imperfect list might be added a host
of hard-riding farmers, with George Toms at
their head, whose devotion to fox-hunting and
the master of the hunt it would be difficult to
match in any other country.

After a line day's sport over those heathery,
scent-holding moors, when the whole party,
"amid brightening bumpers" elated, with

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 249

Trelawny, John King, or Russell for their
chairman, were discussing the incidents of the
run, and kiUing their fox over and over again,
then it was that the "fun of the fair" began.
The ring of a shilhng popped into a wine-glass
gave notice that, with or without the knowledge
of the owner, the sale by auction of his horse
was about to take place, he himself being only
allowed one bid ; so that if satisfied with the
price offered, and he said nothing, his horse
then became the property of the last bidder ;
but if on the contrarv, he had no wish to part
with the animal, he took care to protect himself
by naming a sum that at once put an end to
further competition.

A chestnut pony by Pandarus, called
" Stunning Joe," scarcely fourteen hands high,
had so distinguished himself over the moor
during these meetings, that on two or three
occasions he was persistently put up, and large
sums were bid for him with the hope of obtaining
so rare an animal. But Reginald James, his
owner, knew the value of the little horse too
well to part with him ; for when the bidding
had risen to its top figure — an exceptionally
high one — he invariably took a jump which at
once extinguished the aspirations of the most
spirited competitors.

A young squire, however, from the southern
division of the county, who had indulged rather

250 MEMOIR OF

in "the flow of soul," than "the feast of
reason," took, on one festive night, so active a
part in the matter of bidding for his neighbours'
property that, on awaking next morning, he
found himself in possession of a "string" of
nags which, as his groom was heard to say,
" he no more wanted than a cat wanted two
tails."

Another gentleman, the Rev. Thomas Carew,
father to the present Squire of Collipriest, at
the end of one meeting lamented to Russell
that he had not a horse left to ride home on :
"I came here," he said, "with six useful horses ;
and now I'm left with a pocketful of money, but
without a single horse : I should like to buy
them all back again."

Russell, as before stated, preferring early
rest and an unclouded brain for the full enjo}^-
ment of the morrow, rarely remained in the
guest-chamber to a late hour ; nor could the
most pressing reqyest prevail on him to take a
hand at whist at these meetings, or indeed on
any other occasion. " I've no money to lose
myself," he would say, "and should be very
sorry to risk injuring my neighbour by winning
his." But if there was one festive attraction
which he could not resist, and which fairly
glued him to his seat, it was that of a hunting
song — and if trolled forth by that most hearty
and genial of men, Walter Radcliffe, of Warleigh,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 251

Russell would remain a willing and delighted
listener to the very last note.

There was one song especially, written by
Radcliffe himself, w^hich, from the clear and
stirring style in which he sang it, never failed
to elicit rounds of applause, not only from
Russell, but from every member of that jovial
board. It was called the " Ivybridge Hunt-
Song," and described a run with the Lyneham
— then Mr. Bulteel's — so graphically that, if
published, it would be found little, if at all,
inferior to the best hunting songs, either of Mr.
Egerton-Warburton or Mr. Whyte-Melville. To
not a few of our readers, too, it w^ould bring
back to memory the bright scenes of a bygone
day — ay, and the form of many a kind familiar
face ; of many an old friend long passed away,
but still, to the mind's eye, blessed with the
same unclouded brow, the same happy features
W'hich then, in the morning of life,

"Joy used to wear."

At one meeting of the club, w^hich can
never be forgotten by those who w^ere present,
a lively passage of arms took place betw^een
Russell and Radcliffe, not exactly in singing
songs, but in telling Devonshire stories, which
they told alternately.

Radcliffe's stories chiefly turned on a Cornish
Squireen, whose eccentricities of character and
speech were imitated to the life. This gentleman

252 MEMOIR OF

dearly loved fox-hunting, and possessing a
clever "whit-faced horse," which carried him
brilliantly over Roughtor and Brownwilly, he
valued him more than gold. Being attacked
by serious illness, which brought him face to
face with an enemy he could no longer escape,
and having lived a free-and-easy kind of life,
with more thought for the present than for a
future world, the clergyman of his parish deemed
it his duty to visit him, and impress him with
a serious view of his coming end.

" You are going on a long journey, sir," said
the good parson, " and surely you should make
some preparation for it, before it be too late."

" I've no wish to travel," replied the sick
man ; " this place suits me well enough."

" But, sir, 'tis to a better country I would
direct your thoughts, where "

"A better country, did you say?" interrupted
the other, impatiently. "Give me only a thousand
a year and my old w^iit-faced horse, and I'd
never wish to see a better country than our
Cornish moors."

Finding him impracticable, the parson took
his leave, with manifest but unavailing " signs
of sorrow."

In a very short time afterwards, being
dressed in his top boots and scarlet hunting-
coat, he was carried down to a settle near the
kitchen fire, where, as volumes of smoke curled

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 253

up from his lighted pipe, the spirit of this hardy
Cornishman passed away, and, let us hope, in
spite of himself, took its flight to a better land.

To give even a sketch of the many amusing
stories that were fired off in rapid succession by
the one or the other, in that continuous fusillade,
w^ould be to fill a small volume ; nor, at this
distance of time, would it be a light task to
gather together the fragments of that memorable
encounter. One or two of Russell's, however,
bearing on Devonshire parish-clerks in his early
days, when George IIL was king, can scarcely
have escaped the memory of anv one who was
fortunate enough to hear them then — told as they
were by him with infinite humour and in the
purest vernacular of that favoured county.

John Boyce, the rector of Sherwell, wishing
to have a day's hunting with the staghounds on
the Porlock side of the moor, told his clerk to
give notice in the morning that there would be
no service in the afternoon at their church, as
he w^as going off to hunt with Sir Thomas
Acland over the moor on the following day.
The mandate was obeyed to the letter, the clerk
making the announcement in the following
terms : —

" This is vor to give notiss — there be no
sarvice to this church this arternewn ; cans'
maester is a-going over the moor a stag-hunting
wi' Sir Thomas."

254 MEMOIR OF

Again, at Stockleigh-Pomeroy parish, the rector,
Roope Ilbert, a well-known name in Devonshire,
desired his clerk to give notice that there would
be one service a day only at that church for a
month, as he was going to take duty at Stock-
leigh-English alternately with his own. The
clerk did so in the following words : —

*'This is vor to give notiss — there'll be no
sarvice to thes church but wance a wick, cans'
maester's a-going to sarve t'other Stockleigh and
thes church to all-etarnity."

It seems to have been a very common
fashion in Devonshire, in Russell's early days,
for gentlemen of standing in the county to
adopt the native dialect, especially when con-
versing with the country-folk — a habit arising
either from carelessness, or perhaps because
their speech in that provincial form was best
understood and most natural to the generality
of their neighbours. Russell relates, for instance,
that he was present when a colonel of the North
Devon Militia was reviewing his regiment, and
seeing a hare jump up in the midst of the men,
he shouted out wildly, '* There he go'th, boys,
a lashing great shaver." Then, forgetting the
exact point at which he had ceased to give the
word of command, he turned round and said,
"Where wor I, drummer-boy?"'

" Present arms, sir," responded the youth ;
and the inspection went on.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 255

Again, a yeomanry regiment were enacting
a sham fight among themselves, when a Captain
Prettyjohn was ordered to retreat before a
charge of the enemy. " Retrait ! what doth that
mane?" inquired the captain. "Retrait mean'th
rinning away, I zim ; then, it shall never be
told up to Dodbrook Market that Cap'n Prid'gen
and his brave troop rinned away."

Accordingly, as the enemy came on, bearing
down upon him at a rapid trot, he shouted to
his troop, " Charge, my brave boys, charge ; us
bain't voxes, and they bain't hounds ; us'll face
'em like men."

The collision was awful — men, horses, and
accoutrements strewing the ground on every
side ; several troopers being more or less in-
jured, while one positively refused to mount
again, saying, " I've a brok'd my breeches
already, Cap'n, and I won't mount no more."

The last time Russell heard Lord

speak, was at a Chulmleigh meeting ; when, be-
ing called upon to give a toast, he did so in the
following words: "Gen'lemen, I wish to propose a
toast; and that there is this here 'Fox-hunting.'"

But these Devonshire stories should be
heard to be fully appreciated ; for, seasoned and
served up as they were by Russell and Rad-
cliffe, with all the trimmings and peculiarities
of the purest native accent, their piquancy is
absolutelv lost lacking such condiments.

256 MEMOIR OF

No schoolboy ever enjoyed his hours of play
more than Russell did these South Molton
meetings, the lively and pleasant sociality of
which, independently of the day's sport, was in
no small measure due to the sparkling gaiety
and telling effect of his own conversational
power — a power not only of saying things
humorously, but of communicating the humour
to all around him. The hearty dinner which he
rarely failed to make after the severest run,
seemed rather to stimulate his social energies
than suffer them to subside into that somno-
lescent mood which, with ordinary mortals, is
so apt to follow a full meal after a hard day's
work. Nor, till his head was on his pillow, did
he ever indulge in a wink of sleep ; but then,
once there, ordinarily he slept like a top.
^'Tria sunt necessaria ad humanam vitam ; cibus,
somnus et jocus," was the favourite saying of
a sensible Archbishop in former days ; and
certainly if any one ever did full justice to each
and all of those three requirements, Russell was
that man.

The business of the day being over, and
the Homeric feast duly disposed of, then com-
menced the

" Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And laughter holding- both his sides ; "

then flashes of humour and good-fellowship
enjoyed their full swing, and literally reigned

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 257

supreme. So Dr. Doran was quite right when
he said, "A good dinner sharpens wit; while a
hungry man is as slow at a joke as he is at a
favour."

*' On one occasion, and one only," writes an
old member of the club, "do I remember a
breach of the peace taking place at those merry
meetings. Somebody, utterly ignoring that
precept of St. Peter, which warns us not to
*' speak evil of dignities," was abusing the Bishop
of Exeter (Phillpotts) in round terms, when a
young squire (Tom Carew, of Collipriest) a
staunch friend and admirer of that stout-hearted
prelate, seized a pound of butter and threw it
with all his force at the speaker's head. 'There!
take that,' he said; 'and don't attack in his
absence a better man than vourself ; I'll not
hear him abused by you or any other man with
impunity ! ' "

To most men whose years have been chiefly
spent amid the stirring scenes of a sportsman's
life, some adventures have occurred which,
being so exceptional in their character, can
scarcely be written or related without causing
the shadow of doubt to darken their credibility.
Many such have happened to Russell ; but
there is one he is wont to tell, which, at any
risk, claims a passing notice in this memoir. It
is the story of a wild fox taking his prey while
hotly pursued by hounds — a circumstance not

258 MEMOIR OF

likely to be forgotten by the Rev. J. Bryan, the
rector of Cliddesden, near Basingstoke, as he
was present on that occasion.

Russell had found a fox one fine-scenting
morning on the outskirts of the moor, and was
bringing him at a trimming pace over the w^ide
heathery waste of Hawkridge Common, and
thence into the hanging woods that crown the
Bade with such majestic scenery, when Russell's
ear w^as attracted by the wild screams of a
woman, apparently in the greatest distress. The
hounds at that moment were running exactly in
the direction of the hubbub ; and as Russell
rode up to the spot, he beheld a w^oman rushing
frantically after them, and catching sight of him,
she exclaimed in a voice of agony, " Oh ! Mr.
Rissell ! that there fox hath a tookt away our
little specklety hen ; I seed un snap un up,
and away to go, I did ! "

"Then," said Russell, "I'll kill him and
give you another hen;" and on he went with
the hounds.

The woman was the w^ife of a poor charcoal-
burner, living in a turf cabin, and passing a
lonely existence in the solitude of those wild
woods. On that one hen and her lively cackle,
announcing the good news of a fresh-laid egg,
depended, perhaps for days together, her sole
supply of animal food ; it had been as a pet
lamb to her ; had shared the crumbs of her

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 259

scanty meal, and had been her companion in
many a lonesome hour, when no other living
creature was near.

But the avengers were on the track ; and,
with no refuge at hand, die Reynard must for his
heartless theft. And die he did directly after-
wards, for, within two gunshots of the spot, just
over the Barle, the hounds ran into him ; while
the dishevelled carcase of the " poor little
specklety hen," still warm with life, was picked
up by the disconsolate owner, bringing the
deed home, without a shadow of doubt, to the
rapacity of that hunted fox.

Here, however, Russell's sport was well-
nigh brought to a serious and untimely end.
" My horse Rattler," he writes, " in crossing
the Barle, which was much swollen, missed his
footing among the rocks, and, being carried
off his legs, rolled headlong into the river,
leaving me to get out as best 1 could — a labour
of no little difficulty ; but, with the assistance
of Houlditch, a couple of masons, and a long
pole, I escaped with only a good ducking.
The old horse, however, would not leave the
river till he had drunk his fill — at least three
pails of water. We found in Twitchen Town
Wood, ran him to South Molton, six miles ;
back through the same wood again and then
straight over the Molland and Anstey commons,
to the Barle, under Jekyll's house ; time, one

26o MEMOIR OF

hour and forty minutes, without a check, and
no harm happened to Rattler, notwithstanding
his copious hbation."

It will be anticipated that Russell did not
forget to return to the hut, and console the
woman, not only with an immediate half-crown,
but with the promise of another hen at an early
date.

" Dining at the late Sir Robert Sheffield's,
at Normanby, some years ago," writes an old
friend of Russell's, " I met Lord Henry Ben-
tinck ; and the subject of conversation turning
on the habits of wild foxes, I related a story
told me by Mr. John King, of Fowelscombe,
the circumstances of which he witnessed when
Master of the Hambledon hounds. He had
been running a fox merrily for upwards of forty
minutes ; and coming up to a farmyard, by
which he was making a short cut, he saw the
fox dash into a fiock of ducks, seize a mallard
just below the green of his neck, and carry him
off across a large field when, the hounds running
into him, Mr. King picked up the mallard,
then quivering in its last gasp, and restored it
to its owner.

" ' Mr. King must be a bold man to tell
such a story,' remarked Lord Henry, dryly, as
if he utterly disbelieved it.

" ' I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. King
intimately,' replied I ; ' and he was a man quite

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 261

as unlikely to tell an untruth as your lordship ; '
a rejoinder that brought the conversation to an
abrupt close.

"Years afterwards I repeated to Russell
what Lord Henrv had said ; on which he
replied, ' I onlv wish I had been there ; I
could have told his lordship that a very similar
circumstance happened to myself (that of the
charcoal-burner's little speckletv hen), and I
think lie would have been the bold man, had
he doubted that fact.' "

Russell's thoughts must have carried him
back, at that instant, to the time when he
blacked Bulteel's eye at Plympton School ; or,
later on, perhaps, to those davs of muscular
Christianitv at Oxford, when, if anv one had
been rash enough to doubt his word, or that of
his friend Denne, either of them would have
knocked him down like a ninepin on a skittle-
alley. Still, it must be owned that antics like
these by foxes, when hunted, are most excep-
tional ; two or three only having been witnessed
once, during each of their lives, by men of such
long and varied experience as Mr. King and
the subject of this memoir.

Another incident is equally remarkable : —
" During a Chulmleigh meeting," said Russell,
" I was enjoying a day's sport with Sir Walter
Carew's hounds. They found — I forget exactly
where — and were running him sharply near

262 REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

Romansleigh village, when I saw the fox catch
up a large yellow cat in his mouth and carry
him on as far as I could view him. The fox
was killed, but what became of the poor cat I
am unable to say."

CHAPTER XII.

The South Molton Meetings — Limpetty, Mr. Trelawny's
Huntsman, rides over a Flood-Hatch on "Jack
Sheppard " — Russell Ceases to be a Master of
Hounds — His Long Devotion to the "Antient
Sport of Kings " — A Brief Sketch of the Stag-
hounds — A Barrister and his Gallant Grey
brought to grief in an Exmoor Bog — ^Anecdote
OF Hind and Calf.

Mag"nificent creature ! so stately and brig-ht !
In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight!
For what hath the child of the desert to dread,
Wafting up his own mountains the far-beaming' head ;
Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale !
Hail ! king of the wild and the beautiful — hail !

* * * -x- * *

In the wide raging' torrent that lends thee its roar —
In the cliff that once trod must be trodden no more —
Thy trust, 'mid the dang'ers that threaten thy reigfn :
But what if the stag on the mountain be slain?
On the brink of the rock — lo ! he standeth at bay.
Like a victor that falls at the close of the day.

John Wilson.

Under the immediate auspices of Russell him-
self, backed up by Mr. Trelawny and Sir
Walter Carew, the meetings at South Molton
continued to flourish, season after season, w^ith
unqualified success ; the stout foxes, the unde-
niable hounds, and the rough heathery wastes,
over which the chase from day to day swept

264 MEMOIR OF

like a hurricane, giving a wild character to the
sport, and establishing its popularity throughout
the western counties. Consequently, from all
quarters between the Ouantock Hills and the
Bodmin Moors, between the South Hams and
Hartland Point, every man who possessed a
horse and loved hunting found himself, sooner
or later, partaking as a guest, if not as a
member, of the attractive and varied menu
provided by that club.

Of course, a considerable amount of rivalry
was exhibited, ever and anon, among sundry of
the partisans attached to the three hunts, not
only as to the merits of the respective packs
and the style in which their work was done, but
with reference to the staying powers of the
horses and feats of audacious horsemanship
performed by their riders. One gentleman, for
instance, a member of Russell's hunt, was so
determined not to be beaten or outdone by any
competitor, native or stranger, that he rode in
the most reckless manner, charging without a
scruple of fear the most impracticable fences,
and shouting to his horse as he did so, ^^L'liii
on r ant re ; " meaning that his own neck, or
that of his steed, must be risked at such a time.
It was his watchword, like that of a Knight
Templar entering the lists ; and so fiercely did
he use the portentous motto, when the fence
was an ugly one that, long after his own name

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 265

had been forgotten by the members of Mr.
Trelawny's hunt, he was always spoken of and
readily remembered as that daring rider " L'////
oil V autre."

From the southern side of the county, by
none perhaps, was this rivalry in riding carried
to a higher pitch than, much against his wish,
by Mr. Trelawny's servants. Limpetty, the
huntsman, on a wonderful little animal called
Jack Sheppard, was utterly uncontrollable on
such occasions ; go he would, if hounds were
running hard, at a castle wall or over the mouth
of a coal-pit ; while poor Jack Gumming, the
whip, who afterwards broke his neck with the
Grafton hounds, if not under the immediate eye
of his master, was equally fearless and equally
headstrong.

On one occasion, Russell had intimated to
Mr. Trelawny that, if he met at Cuzzicombe
Post and drew an acre of gorse hard by, he
would probably find a flyer. Accordingly,
meeting there, a trimming run after Trelawny's
own heart — one of forty minutes — proved to
be the happy result. The fox was in view, the
hounds running into him and Limpetty "home
to their sterns," when a barrier interposed,
which no man with a heart less intrepid than
his own would have dared to encounter. It
was a flood-hatch, broad, deep, and dangerous ;
and a thrilling sight it was to see him on Jack

266 MEMOIR OF

Sheppard flying over it, like a dragon on
wings, looking back as he did so over his
shoulder, and singing out to Jack Gumming,
" Where be they Knights to now, I should like
to knaw ; " alluding to Mr. Frederick and Lewis
Knight, of Simonsbath ; two well-known brilliant
performers over any country, but especially hard
to catch over Exmoor.

Paradoxical though it may appear, never
w^ere the prospects of fox-hunting brighter in
the north of Devon than when those happy and
successful meetings at South Molton were at
length brought to a close. For the flame that
had first kindled them, and the fuel on which
they had fed, had neither burned out nor
smouldered away ; but, on the contrary, had
spread with a vitality that laid hold of the heart
of the country, and continued to gain fresh
vigour in every succeeding year.

After the expiration of that club it is not a
little remarkable that, within a circuit of thirty
miles, taking Russell's country as a centre, two
or three packs, whose fame had hitherto been
little known beyond the limits of the western
counties, should have rapidly acquired a pro-
minence which, in point of blood, looks, and
efficiency, would have borne a comparison with
the most renowned packs of the present age.

In the Chulmleigh country, for example, the
hounds of the present Earl of Portsmouth, soon

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 267

after his accession to the title, speedily assumed
a very different aspect from that of former
days, insomuch that the pack has since been
pronounced, by no mean judge, to be " infinitely
superior to anything that has ever been seen in
the West of England : their hunting attributes
being on a par with their other merits."

Living within twenty miles of Eggesford,
and hunting with that pack on every available
occasion, Russell must have known the historv
and character of every individual hound in it
almost as well as the huntsman himself ; more-
over, being on the most friendly terms with
Lord Portsmouth, even from his earliest youth,
who so competent, who so ready as Russell, if
consulted by him, to aid the young master with
all the judgment and experience of his riper
vears ?

That his lordship did so consult him in the
first days of his hunting career is quite certain ;
although from his early association with a ken-
nel, his hereditary love of hounds, and the
power of close observation he has since shown
with respect to the breeding and selection of
puppies. Lord Portsmouth's judgment must
very soon have developed into maturity, and
needed little help from any man, even from
Russell himself. And as to his knowledge of
hunting, it is not very long since that, at a
large breakfast-party given by Mr. Trelawny,

268 MEMOIR OF

Russell was asked by a gentleman present which
of the two he considered the better sportsman,
the Duke of Beaufort or Lord Portsmouth ?
His reply was, "They are the two best in
England — you cannot give a wrinkle to either ;
and if I place the Duke of Beaufort first, it
is only in deference to his rank."

Again, in West Devon, the Honourable Mark
Rolle, on the retirement of Mr. John Moore
Stevens in 1858, took possession of the Tor-
rington country ; and, with the help of some
valuable hounds from the Cleveland and Rufford
kennels, established by degrees the noble pack
which has since attained so much celebrity.

Then, about the same time, there arose a
third pack, which, started by Lord Poltimore,
with Russell as his chief counsellor, acquired so
wide-spread a fame during the short time they
hunted the country that, when they were sold,
the price they fetched astonished even "Tom
Pain " himself. His lordship, in reference to
the subject of this memoir, thus writes of him :
"When I first began keeping hounds, in 1857,
he taught me much, and was of the greatest
possible assistance to me ; but, on removing
into Dorsetshire and taking my hounds with
me, I then saw less of him, except when
he came on his annual visits, than in former
days. His intuitive knowledge of the run of a
fox, even in a country strange to Russell, was

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 269

marvellous. I remember well that, on one occa-
sion in Dorset, after a fast and straight run
from Thresher's Gorse, in the Buckland Vale,
over the Monument country, the fox was headed
and the hounds brought to a slight check. At
that moment a fresh fox was halloed ahead,
while some of the field who viewed him did
their best to get the hounds on to his line.
Russell never moved ; and some one remarking
that he was taking matters very coolly (being
so well placed in so good a run up to that
point), he quietly answered, ' The hunted fox is
behind ; that is a fresh fox.' My huntsman
was of the same opinion ; and while he was
making his cast, I viewed the hunted fox,
which had laid down ; we got on him again,
and, in a sharp burst of ten minutes more,
rolled him over in the open. Many of the
field — a large one — had galloped of^" to the
halloa of the fresh fox, and, being on those
downs where hounds can race, were thrown out,
nor did they make their appearance till many
minutes after the fox was killed. One man on
coming up remarked to my huntsman, ' Where
have you been ? Why didn't you come to my
halloa?' 'Eating my fox,' was the answer;
Russell, who was close by, adding to the man,
' I told you, sir, it was a fresh fox you halloed ;
the hunted fox was headed, and had laid down
behind us.' "

270 MEMOIR OF

That the extra impetus thus given to fox-
hunting in the north of Devon may be attributed
in no small degree to Russell's example, energy,
and never-failing advocacy in its favour, no one
conversant with its past and present history can
for a moment doubt. Among all classes now,
from the peer to the peasant in that country,
the one feeling is to respect a fox ; whereas
in the early days of Russell's career, as already
shown, the very church bells were used not
only to announce public worship, or the passing
away of a Christian soul, but the death-knell of
a fox.

It is on record, that Mr. Mervyn Marshall,
while attending divine service at Welcome
Church, near Clovelly, a fall of snow having
occurred during the night, was not a little
startled by a man putting his head twice inside
the church door, and shouting aloud each time,
"I've a-got un ; " on which almost every man
of the congregation, knowing a fox had been
traced to ground, seized his hat and quitted
the church.

No such barbarisms exist in the north of
Devon at present ; bells do no more than the
legitimate work for which their pious donors
intended them — no more than that most de-
voted campanologist, the Rev, H. T. Ellacombe,
could wish ; and as for foxes, they have
fair play shown them, and if they can only

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 271

beat hounds, they hve in no danger of worse
enemies.

Fox-hunting, therefore, being now estab-
hslied on a sound and satisfactory footing
throughout the north of Devon, Russell, in
1 87 1, parted with his last pack, as the reader
is already aware, to that distinguished sportsman,
Mr. H. Villebois, of Marham Hall, Norfolk ; and
thenceforth he ceased to be a Master of
Hounds. It was a wrench, however, which
told upon him painfully at the time, and it
could hardly have been otherwise ; he had
kept hounds, lived with them, and hunted them
himself for half a century, nor did the old love
cease, for many a dav afterwards, to assert its
long and strong hold on Russell's heart.

Still, there were not a few among his old
friends who refused to believe that life, apart
from the company of his hounds, could be
longer enjoyed by him ; and who consequently
urged him, though in the seventy-sixth year
of his age, to take to them again. But this
time, much as he missed them under the old
tree at Tordown, he remained hrm.

As a scientific master of woodcraft, his
great points may be thus summarized : — A
thorough knowledge of the wild animal and
his habits ; his mode of drawing covers and
finding his fox, working him in big woodlands
incessantly, so that he was a beaten fox before

272 MEMOIR OF

he went away ; letting his hounds alone at a
check, and when they failed, making a grand
cast on the line far ahead, his intuition as to
the run of a fox guiding him aright in almost
every case. His command over hounds — two
or three of which he always had near him — so
that with a tricky fox in a deep woodland,
the moment he caught a view he could clap
them on instantly. By this method he often
drove a fox away from his old haunts and
country, and so forced a run on a strange
line — a grand point in favour of hounds. Then,
his feeding — he knew the constitution of every
hound in his kennel.

So far, then, as to Russell's life with his
own hounds ; but there is another and a no
less remarkable phase of it — his long devotion to
the " Antient Sport of Kings" — a phase which,
before we part with him, claims to be seen
and described, however imperfectly, through
the medium of this memoir.

With the exception of that memorable day,
the 30th September, 18 14, when, with Lord
Fortescue's hounds, Russell saw his first red
deer found at Padwells ; and then, after a
thrilling chase, helped to collar the noble beast
in the depths of the roaring Barle, no allusion
has been as yet made to his love of Stag-
hunting, a sport he followed through a long
life with an ardour worthy of a boy — always

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 273

fresh but never sated, and with an untiring
consistency positively unparalleled. Mr. Charles
Palk CoUyns, of Dulverton, long looked upon
as the Nestor of the moor, hunted, he tells us,
"with the staghounds for forty-six years"; while
the experience of Mr. Boyse, of Withypoole, his
predecessor as a chronicler of that sport, does
not appear to have extended beyond forty years,
that is, from 1776 to 18 16, when Mr. Collyns
took up the running, and "regularly noted the
chases " down to i860.

Russell, then, dating his entry from 1814, with
constant attendance, season after season, from
that day to 1882, a period of sixty-eight years,
had a far longer experience with that noble and
unique sport than either of those gentlemen.

" Accordingly, down to that year, Russell, it
appears, followed the chase of the wild red
deer under at least a dozen different dynasties ;
the following being a recorded list of the
masters, and the dates of their succession,
during that period : —

In 181 2 the late Lord Fortescue became
Master of the Staghounds for the second time ;
but resigned them again in 1818, during which
period of six years, as before stated, they killed
ninety deer — forty-two stags, and forty-eight
hinds.

Mr. Stucley Lucas, of Baron's Down, next
took the command ; his tenure of office being

T

274 MEMOIR OF

also brought to a close at the end of six years,
when, in 1825, to Russell's great regret, the
old-fashioned staghounds — a grand pack, that
stood nearly twenty-seven inches high, and for
more than a century had been bred expressly
for that sport — were sold at Tattersall's, and
for ever lost to the country. " They went to
Germany," writes Russell ; '' but I kept three
bitches for twelve months, hoping some one
w^ould begin again ; then, having only £80 a
year to live upon, I gave them to ' Smash
Lewis ' for a Welsh friend of his — a Mr. John
Dillwyn Llewelyn, of Penllergare, near Swansea ;
and thirty years afterwards I picked out their
descendants in his kennel."

With all Russell's love for the dash of a
foxhound, he regarded those magnificent hounds
with the most unbounded admiration ; declaring
them to have been, as they certainly w^ere,
peculiarly adapted for the chase of the wild red
deer ; so perfect were they in water, so driving
on scent, and so sonorous in tongue, the latter,
indeed, reminding him of a tenor bell,

" Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging- slow with sullen roar."

Mr. CoUyns, too, was in despair at their loss,
and speaks of it with almost tearful regret : "A
nobler pack of hounds," he says, "no man ever
saw — alas 1 that they should now be consigned
to the kennel of a German baron ! For

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 275

courage, strength, speed and tongue, they were
unrivalled. Like the game they pursued, they
never appeared to be putting forth all their
powers of speed, and yet few horses could live
with them on the open. Their rarest quality,
perhaps, was their sagacity in hunting in the
water — every pebble, every overhanging bush or
twig which the deer might have touched, was
quested as they passed up or down the stream,
and the crash with which the scent, if detected,
was acknowledged and announced, made the
whole country echo again.

" Nor must I forget to notice the staunch-
ness with which they pursued their game, even
when the scent had been stained by the deer
passing through a herd of his own species,
or through fallow-deer in a park. Wonderful,
indeed, was the unerring instinct they displayed
in carrying on the scent, disregarding the lines,
which, spreading right and left around the track
of the hunted deer, would, it might well be
supposed, have been fatal to their power of
keeping on the foot of their quarry."

Again, "The importance of the two qualifi-
cations of staghounds above mentioned, viz. :
sagacity in hunting in the water, and staunch-
ness in pursuing a hunted deer through the
herd and upon stained ground, is well known to
every man accustomed to the sport. -They are
important, nay, indispensable, in consequence of

276 MEMOIR OF

the habits of the deer ; for a stag is seldom,
I might ahiiost say never, roused without
' taking soil ' in the course of the run ; and he
rarely neglects the opportunity of seeking for
safety by joining the herd, if he has the good
fortune to be able to do so."

After two years of mourning, the spirit of the
country again revived, when, in 1827, the late
Sir Arthur Chichester, of Youlston, brought a
pack of hounds into the field, and once more
restored the " antient sport," no less to Russell's
delight than to that of the whole country.

On Sir Arthur's resignation in 1833, the
" sport of kings " again fell into abeyance, and
but for the exertion of Mr. Collyns would pro-
bably then have disappeared for ever. He,
however, established a committee, of which
Russell, who lived fifty miles from Dulverton,
was not a member, although doing all in his
power to promote the object it had in view ;
and under its management the country was
hunted from 1837 to 1842.

The Hon. Newton Fellowes then came
forward and gave most efficient aid '' in the
hour of need;" the hounds being under his
able management till 1847, when the present
Sir Arthur Chichester became the master for
one season only.

In 1849 Mr. Theobald, and after him Mr.
George Luxton, of Winkleigh, took the helm

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 277

for a season each ; when Captain West ^ic-
ceeded to that honourable post, and was followed
by Mr. Tom Carew, of Collipriest, with John
Beale for his huntsman ; he, however, resigned
the command in 1853, to the general regret
of all classes. Captain West then came for-
ward a second time, but only to stop a gap,
which, happily, was destined soon to be long
and most efficiently filled by Mr. Fenwick-
Bisset, who, taking the command in 1855, held
it to the entire satisfaction of the whole country
to the year 1881, when he was succeeded by
Lord Ebrington, the present Master.

Nor will the work done by Mr. S. H.
Warren, who for so many years and with so
much tact acted as honorary secretary to the
Devon and Somerset Hunt, be readily forgotten;
for long, able, and gratuitous were the services
of that gentleman in behalf of the noble sport
peculiar to that country.

Russell could not speak too highly in praise
either of the management or of the sport Mr.
Bisset had shown ; the latter he considered equal
to anything he remembered in the palmy days
of old, when "the halls of Castle Hill rang
merrily with the wassail of the hunters;" and as
to the former, he would say that no man ever
handled the farmers with more consummate tact,
nor did more to establish the noble sport on a
sure and permanent footing than he had done.

278 MEMOIR OF

Mr. Collyns, to whose able and graphic
work on "The Chase of the Wild Red Deer"
the writer is beholden for so much information
on that subject, thus alludes to Mr. Bisset :
"The sport has now the countenance and
support of the landlords and the enthusiastic
good wishes of the farmers. Mr. Bisset knows
how to take tlie command of a pack and of a
country ; and hunting as he does on the most
improved principles, observing the rules from
which in days of yore no sportsman ever
deviated, having his deer carefully harboured,
drawing with tufters and not with the pack, and
so avoiding the danger of destroying deer out
of season or unwarrantable, I liave no doubt he
will find the owners of coverts continue to rally
round him as they have done ; and that, if it
should be our good fortune to keep him amongst
us, he will again re-establish the sport and place
it on such a footing as to make it vie with that
which our forefathers witnessed, and the history
of which thev recounted and handed down to
their sons and sons' sons with pride. Woe be-
tide the stag which the present pack pursue !
Well may he tremble when he hears the twang
of John Babbage's horn, and catches the sound
of his able coadjutor's, Arthur Heal's, shrill 'hark
together,' as he cheers the eager hounds on their
quarry. Not all his wiles, his fieetness, or his
cunning, can save him from his well-trained foes."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 279

It is to Russell, no doubt, and probably to
Mr. Jekyll, the rector of Hawkridge, that Mr.
Collyns alludes, when, observing that the re-
creation of the chase is deemed incompatible
with the duties of clerical life, he thus adds :
"For myself, I will say that, without w^ishing
to see the dignitaries of the Church again
maintaining their kennels of hounds, I should
feel regret if I were to miss from the field
the familiar faces of some of those members
of the clergy who now join in the sport of
our country, and whose presence is always
welcomed at the covert side."

Without records of any kind to refer to,
beyond those dependent on memory and oral
tradition alone, the attempt to give anything like
a detailed account of Russell's sport and doings
with the staghounds would be at once a difficult
and most thankless task. Local descriptions,
however wild and grand the scenery may be,
don't suit the general reader, and are too often
followed with difficulty, even by those to whom
the landmarks of the country are well known.

The "sport of kings," however, has formed
so considerable a portion of Russell's hunting
life, that to make no reference to it in this
memoir would be an omission which not only
modern Actasons, but manv a fair follower of
the buskined queen, would look upon as unpar-
donable. For has not he, from time beyond

28o MEMOIR OF

their ken, been one of the prominent features,
and to many the guiding star, of that gay and
brilliant meeting which, year after year, in-
augurates the opening-day on Cloutsham Ball ?
Nay, with his knowledge of the forest, extend-
ing as it does to every bridle-path and sheep-
track ; to every ford, clam, and safe crossing-
place during the stormiest state of the moorland
floods; to the readiest inlets and outlets of every
woodland combe from the Ouantock Hills to
Mole's Chamber — has he not scores of times
picked up the waifs and strays of the hunting-
field ; and then, as " guide, philosopher, and
friend," led them in their sorest need into safer
and happier grounds ?

Yes! countless are the heroes and fair women,
too, who have been thrown out in that wild
chase, and who, but for his pilotage, knowledge
of the moor, and, above all, the experience he
has had in the running and wiles of the hunted
deer, would never have seen a hound again. It
is not very long since that a gentleman, better
versed in the intricate ways of the law than in
those of Exmoor, came down for a month's
hunting to Porlock. The first meet was at
Brendon Barton ; and the harbourer having
reported a "warrantable deer" in Parsonage
Wood, the tufters w^ere trotted off to that point,
and no sooner laid on than up jumped the
grand beast, breaking away in view by Fairleigh,

' 1

t, t'

o
o
m

o

o

w

o
u

H
i-l

o

fa
fa

!

^

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 281

and putting his head straight for the distant
Chains of Exmoor.

The rouse was magnificent, and the hounds
being clapped on at once, away they went at
best pace for the wild waste on Exehead ;
crossing the brook above Cornham, they raced
thence up to Acland's Allotment and Five-
barrows, through the deep ground of which
none but the stoutest horses and most experi-
enced men could now hold their own and live
with the hounds. Among these, however, was
our friend the barrister, well mounted and well
forward on a thoroughbred grey, but riding a
little wide of the pack and following a well-
known member of the hunt, on wiiom he had
been told to keep his eye. Never was a field in
greater discomfiture ; some scattered for miles
over the dusky moor, some floundering in the
bog like flies in treacle ; others brought to a dead
standstill, as the chase swept on to Yard Down,
Bray, Challacombe, Showlesborough Castle, and
thence to Woodbarrow, where the gallant grey
and his rider, having left their pilot miles behind,
came to grief, and bid fair, in the absence of
all human aid, to pass the night amid the
swamps and jack-o'-lanterns of that solitary waste.

The man had, of course, quitted his saddle ;
and, with bridle in hand, was doing his utmost
to help the horse forward, as he now struggled
hock-deep through the spongy soil. With a few

282 MEMOIR OF

more plunges in the same direction, the brave
beast must have come to its girths in another
half-minute ; when a ringing shout, such as no
one but Russell could have given, reached the
rider's ears : " Back for your life, man ; back,
I tell you ! "

Instantly obeying the mandate, he managed
with a mighty effort to get the grey's head fairly
round ; then with a few^ frantic plunges the
gallant animal stood once more on sound ground.

''Now then," said Russell, who had lingered
near him to see if he needed further help,
" the deer's going to Woolhanger ; and if you
stick to me, we shall probably catch them
again."

He did stick to him like his shadow, and
caught the pack in the covers below ; when the
deer, hard pressed, broke away and took to
sea ; but being blanched by a boat, soon landed
again, and after a short chevy was finally run
into amid the surf and shingle of that loud-
sounding shore.

The habits of a deer by night and at early
dawn were perhaps never better understood by
any man than by Jem Blackmore, harbourer to
the staghounds for so many years ; but it may
well be doubted if bv day, even he knew half as
much as Russell did about the shifts and
running of a deer when once roused and away.
The former, indeed, had details to study, the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 283

perfect knowledge of which could only be
acquired by long experience and the keenest
and nicest observation. With the perceptive
faculty of a prairie-hunter, he had to note care-
fully every trace, slot, or sign of the wary game,
whose haunts and ambush it was his object to
discover. How difficult the lesson, but how
well it may be learned, may be gathered from
the picture of a harbourer so artistically painted
bv Mr. Whvte-Melville in " Katerfelto?' "The
ground," he writes, "must indeed be hard, and
the * slot ' or print of the animal's feet, many
hours old to baffle Red Rube, who, stooping to
the line like a bloodhound, reads off, as from
a book, the size, sex, weight, and age of the
passing deer, the pace at which it was travel-
ling, its distance ahead, and the probability of
its affording a run."

Russell's pursuit however, of the noble
animal commenced only with the uncoupling of
the tufters — the point at which the other has
brought his labours to a close. But from that
moment, although simply a looker-on like the
rest of the field, yet owing to his intimate
knowledge of the dodges which, before break-
ing cover, an old deer will adopt to save his
haunches, many a needless sacrifice has been
averted and many a glorious run obtained.
An old stag, for instance, rarely if ever goes to
lair without having a brocket, or young stag.

284 MEMOIR OF

within reach of him, which, when he is pressed
by hounds, he turns out and instantly hes down
in his bed — a sight once witnessed by Russell
himself. The substitute then, till the trick is
discovered, is compelled to do penance for his
noble friend, the monarch of the glen. Thus
the changes, which are constantly occurring
before the right animal can be driven to face
the open and exhibit his beam and branches
to the gaze of a crowd, are so frequent and
so puzzling that, in the absence of a view,
it often requires judgment of the most acute
order to discriminate whether the tufters are
flinging their tongues so merrily on the right
or the wrong game ; on a hind, a brocket, or
a warrantable deer.

Not once, nor twice, but a hundred times
and more, has Russell done good service in
that way. To him again, beyond all doubt,
does Mr. Collyns allude when he describes the
tufters at work, and the " hark back," to which
so frequently they are compelled to submit.
"Shiner," he says, "is close upon them (two
hinds and a calf), and the rest of the tufters
following him. A little rating and a few cracks
of the whip, and their heads are up : they
know that thev are not on the * real animal ; '
and as soon as Sam's horn summons them,
back they go, and resume their labour. Again
they open, and again we are on the alert. The

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 285

cry increases ; they run merrily, and we are
high in hope. 'Ware fox ! ' says a M.F.H.
the best sportsman in the west, as he views
Charley slinking along towards the gap on the
hedgerow. Then, with his stentorian voice, he
calls out to Sam, ' Your hounds are on a fox,
Sam.' Sam does not hear, but rides up within
a hundred yards of us. 'What, sir?' 'Your
hounds are on a fox, Sam,' repeats the M.F.H.
'Think not, sir,' says Sam; 'my hounds won't
hunt fox!' 'I tell you that they are on a fox,
Sam ; call them off,' says the foxhunter. Sam
looks vicious, but he obeys, saying in a voice
which could be heard by the Master of Fox-
hounds, but certainly not by the tufters, 'Get
away, hounds, get away; ain't you ashamed of
hunting of a stinking little warmint not half
the size of vourselves ? Get away ! ' Sam still
maintains his creed that his tufters were not
on the fox, and two minutes afterwards a yell
announced that a different sort of animal was
afoot. Another tally ; Tom Webber's voice ;
a guarantee that it is the right thing, for the
good yeoman is the best and truest stag-hunter
that ever cheered a hound. Every one is on
the alert ; we ride forward, and presently in
the distance, view, not a stag, alas ! but a
hind breaking towards the moor. ' How is this,
Tom ? You were wrong for once.' ' No, sir ;
not L I'll swear it was a stag, and a good

286 MEMOIR OF

one, but you see he has pushed up the hind
and gone down, and we must have him up
again. So the tufters are stopped again, and
sent back on heel ; and by-and-bye that un-
mistakable ' yell ' which announces a view is
heard, and this time the antlered monarch
reveals himself to the whole of the assembled
multitude."

Then again, on the water, which almost
invariably is the last refuge of a deer in dis-
tress, the countless wiles he will adopt to elude
his pursuers have been so often witnessed by
Russell, that it is no figure of speech to say
he was familiar w4th them all. More than sixty
years of experience, the keenest observation,
and a thorough acquaintance with the habits
of the animal, at least in chase, gave him a
power which, when appealed to, generally
proved more than a match for the craftiest
stratagem practised by a deer.

In early days, when Russell kept his otter-
hounds at South Molton, and earned the grati-
tude of all fiy-fishermen in that country by
ridding the rivers of hve-and-thirty otters in a
couple of seasons, he must have learned many
a useful lesson in studying the watery ways of
those mysterious animals. The subtlety of their
habits, when closely pressed by hounds, must
have shown him how marvellous is the power
of instinct to elude pursuit, if life be at stake.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 287

and water at hand — that ahnost natural element
to which, for refuge, they are wont to fiy.

It was a rare apprenticeship for him, that
time with the otter-hounds ; every kill develop-
ing fresh dodges, and qualifying him in after
years to solve those most puzzling of all prob-
lems in the Art of Venerie — the wiles of a deer
when he comes to " soil." It is a fact known
to all followers of that noble sport, that, short
of diving, a deer will take as much advantage
of water as an otter does ; wading and swim-
ming for a mile or two, sinking himself to his
nostrils, with the topmost tine of his antlers
effectually submerged, and often quitting the
stream at one point to return to it at another.
" It not unfrequently happens," says Mr. Collyns,
" that the cunning animal has merely ' soiled '
when he entered the stream and then backed
it on his foil, and laid fast in the covert."

Mr. Whyte-Melville, too, in " Katerfelto,"
describes the famous harbourer, Red Rube, as
being utterly perplexed by what a deer may do
when forced to its last move at the end of a
chase: "Who shall say that all this calculation,
this strategy, this reflection, is so far below
reason to be called instinct ? Even Red Rube,
many a mile behind on his pony, taxing his
resources of intellect and cunning, backed by
the observation of fifty years, that he may
arrive somehow at the finish in time to hear

288 MEMOIR OF

the ' bay,' confesses he is but a fool when his
wits are pitted against those of a deer driven
to its last shifts."

But, however marvellous may be the shifts
of a deer to save its own life, the animal is
equally adroit in saving that of its young. " I
have heard Russell relate," says an old friend,
'* that on one occasion he witnessed a curious
manoeuvre on the part of a hind, which, with
true maternal care, successfully managed to
conceal and protect her calf, when pursued
by hounds. But let him tell his own tale.
'We had been driving,' said he, 'for some
time in cover what all supposed to be a barren
hind ; when, just in front of me, at the head
of the combe, out came a hind and her little
calf breaking away together over the open
moor. After travelling for some distance side
by side, I observed their pace slacken, as the
young one appeared to be flagging and unable
to hold on with her dam. The hounds were
now gaining rapidly on them, when I said to
Stucley Lucas, " They'll kill that poor calf to a
certainty." "No they won't," he replied; "she'll
kick it down." In another instant, on passing
over some furzy ground, I distinctly saw the
hind give the calf a sharp kick with her heel,
and down went the little one as if she were
shot with a gun. It was the signal for her to
keep close — a signal no sooner given than

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 289

at once instinctively obeyed. There she lay,
crouched up like a hare in her form ; while
the hounds, pressing on and keeping the hind
in view, swept over the spot without indicating
the slightest suspicion of the trick they had
been so artfully played. We ran that hind over
the moor for twenty miles, by North Molton
to Nadrid Ford, where Tout, the huntsman,
and myself being the only two men up, he
turned and said " Mr. Russell, what had we
better do ; we are close to Brembridge Wood ;
hadn't we better stop them?" "Certainly," I
replied, " stop them at once ; for if you get
them in there, every hound will have his deer,
and you'll never get them out again. Go back
on the same line, and you'll pick up the
stragglers."

" ' This happened on a Tuesday, very early
in the season, and before the regular hunting
had commenced. Two days afterwards, on the
way to Porlock, I was hailed by a turf-cutter,
who said, *' The hind you hunted on Tuesday
last has only just gone back, not an hour ago."
"How do you know it is the same hind?" I
inquired, doubtingly. " Because, sir, she was a
light-coloured one, and had a very big udder."
The next day (Friday), the hounds were no
sooner thrown into cover than, to our utter
surprise, out came the same hind and calf again.
The latter quickly disappeared, but the former

u

290 REV. JOHN RUSSELL

took precisely the same line over the moor
which she had taken on the previous Tuesday,
gave us a glorious run, and at length fairly beat
us by gaining Brembridge Wood and joining
the herd ; and I doubt not ' Russell added,
' that in a day or two afterwards the loving pair
were together agam.' "

CHAPTER XIII.

Russell and His Friend, the Rev. A. F. Luttrell, of

QUANTOCKSHEAD ThE DaNGER OF HANDLING A StAG

AT Bay — Man and Hound Injured, and both Saved
BY Russell — Ladies to the Front over Exmoor — •
Mrs. Cholmondeley's Perilous Fall.

He knows the best line for each cover,
He knows where to stand for a start,

And long- may he live to ride over
The country he loves in his heart.

Egerton-Warburton.

Valuing the companionship of Russell not less
than his long and untiring devotion to the sport,
Mr. Fenwick-Bisset, the well-known Master of
the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, sent him,
in April, 1877, a couple of stags' heads, with the
following letter : —

" I have sent you two heads to-day, one
taken in Sheardown Water on the 6th of
October last, the other that of a deer which,
you may remember, stole away from Hawk-
combe, and we hunted up to, and fresh found
in Badgeworthy Wood, ran him back and killed
him in Avon Pool, below Bossington. They are
not very big heads, but not the less memorable
on that account.

292 MEMOIR OF

" I was greatly struck by your exuberant
spirits in the hunting-field ; much more like a
schoolboy than a man of eighty. May you live
to see many more such runs as these afforded ;
and when you can no longer see them, may you
talk them over, like your rare old friend, Alec
Luttrell."

The following communication from a lady, a
near relative of Mr. Luttrell's, is so interesting
that, with her kind permission, it may well find
a place in this memoir : —

"On the 28th December, 1876, Mr. Russell
was on a visit to his old college friend, the Rev.
A. F. Luttrell, of East Ouantockshead, then in
his eighty-third year ; and on the following day
(after going on the Ouantock Hills on foot, to
look for the hounds of Mr. Luttrell, of Dunster,
who was hunting near) he (Russell) went on to
St. Audries, the seat of Sir Alexander Acland
Hood, to dine and sleep, and to be present at
the tenants' ball on that evening the 29th. During
dinner he mentioned as a curious coincidence
that, on looking over some family papers,
he found that in the Christmas week of 1776
his father had made a journey on horseback
from Meath, near Hatherleigh, to Dunster, to
pass a few days at the Castle, with his old
friend and schoolfellow Mr. Luttrell, the then
' Squire ' of Dunster ; and now, in the Christmas
week of 1876, their two sons were passing

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 293

some days together, both over fourscore years,
and the next generation only, though a hundred
years had passed since that visit of their
fathers. Mr. Russell was then sitting at table
with several of the grandchildren and great-
grandchildren of his father's host and friend ;
among them, the present possessor of the
Castle, a grandson, and his eldest son, who had
attained his majority six months before, when
Mr. Russell had been one of the many old
friends assembled at Dunster on that joyous
occasion.

" At the tenants' ball the same night, Mr.
Russell was among the most active dancers,
joining in quadrilles, lancers, and country dances,
with the prettiest girls in the room (all delighted
to have him for a partner), and greeting all his
old friends in his heartv manner. He retired
to bed at three a.m., regretting the necessity of
leaving the festive scene before Sir Roger de
Coverley began ; but he had to start at eight
a.m., on a journey of over forty miles, as, he
said, * Lord Portsmouth's hounds were to meet
near his place in Devonshire, and he had
promised his lordship to be back soon after
twelve o'clock to show him his second fox ' —
which he did. The previous Monday had been
his eighty-first birthday."

Mr. Stucley Lucas, the present owner of
Baron's Down, whose father succeeded the late

294 MEMOIR OF

Earl Fortescue, in 1818, as Master of the Dul-
verton Staghounds, and from whose house, it
will be remembered, Russell saw his first stag
killed in 18 14, has kindly favoured the writer
with the following letter : —

" So long ago as I can remember — and that
is not far from half a century — down to the
present year, Russell has always stuck to the
staghounds with a consistency unequalled by
any living man ; no matter where they met,
how long they ran, nor where they finished at
the end of the day. Our entrance hall, as you
know, is pretty well decorated with stags' heads,
trophies of the chase in my father's time, when
the woods and combes of Exmoor resounded
with the music of those grand old-fashioned
hounds, which he kept for six years.

" Well, it would charm your heart to hear
the fine old fellow when he drops in upon us,
as he now and then does, still throwing his
tongue with all the vigour and animation of
youth, and pointing out, as if it had happened
yesterday, how this deer or that had fought
his last fight to the bitter end ; how, with
brow-antler, piercing like a bayonet, another
had killed the bravest young hound in all the
pack, knocked over the huntsman, or old Joe
the whip, or perhaps Russell himself, and held
his own against all odds, till the death-stroke
fell, and his life-blood crimsoned the ground.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 295

" Then he would tell of one, whose royal
crown of beam and branches proclaimed him
king of the forest — a deer so savage that, when
he was brought to bay in a farmyard, no one
for some time dared to approach him. At
length, as he shifted his quarters closer to the
house, Russell was let out of a window, and
with the aid of a rope was able to secure
the noble beast and avert the danger that
threatened the hounds.

"I see in my father's stag-hunting note-
book," continues Mr. Lucas, "an instance re-
corded of Russell's indomitable pluck : the
stag had crossed the Taw, when, coming to
the bank of that turbulent stream, Russell,
without hesitation dashed into it and swam to
the opposite shore ; while, of all the field, one
man only was bold enough to face the stream
and follow the hounds.

" Again, I myself, witnessed an act of cour-
age on Russell's part which I can never forget.
We had driven our stag, after a long run, to the
foot of the Ouantock Hills ; and there, with five
or six couple of hounds only, had brought him
to bay in a small stream, just deep enough to
compel them to swim, while he stood firm on
his legs. What was to be done, for there was
no one up but Russell and myself ? The situa-
tion was a most critical one, as, with lowered
beam and defiant air, the deer's charge appeared

296 MEMOIR OF

to be imminent, and then some of the best
hounds would either have been killed on the
spot, or have had their hides seamed from
shoulder to stern. Russell jumped off his pony
(Fox by name, a wonderful little animal, which,
by-the-bye, immediately ran away and gave me
no end of trouble to catch him), rushed in upon
the deer, caught him by the horns and held
him till a third man came to his aid ; who, so far
as I can recollect, was poor old Tom Webber,
long since dead. Luckily for Russell, the deer
(a four-year old) was not a very savage one ;
so, while I held the horses, the two, after a
sharp tussle, managed to secure him. Several of
the field then made their appearance — a little
too late, however, to witness the last act of the
play, the crowning scene of the day's sport.

" Russell and I started home soon after-
wards ; and, long as the distance was, reached
Baron's Down before nightfall. I need not tell
you that Russell has been out with the stag-
hounds, to the best of my belief, every day
during the past season (1877) ; that is to say,
when a stag was to be hunted ; for hinds he
doesn't care so much about. Let me add, that
he generally sees as much of the run as any one
out ; stays to the finish, and rides incredible
distances back to his home — no trifling feat for
a man in the vigour of youth ; but for one of
his age a truly wonderful performance."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 297

Even to one well accustomed to the sport
the business of collaring an old deer when he
is " set up " by hounds, is a task that, to do it
safely, requires at times all the skill and adroit-
ness of a matador ; but to the inexperienced
hunter, no matter how quick, active, and strong
he may be, the stag, with those long, pointed
brow-antlers of his, which he is wont to use
with such terrible effect, is an awkward cus-
tomer to approach, when driven to his last
resource and confronting his foes on some
vantage-ground.

Many a narrow escape has Russell had, first
and last, at such times ; but fortune, aided by
his physical power and thorough acquaintance
with every mode of handling the animal in that
the final ceremony, carried him scathless through
numerous close and fierce encounters.

One day, during the mastership of Mr.
Stucley Lucas, who, it will be remembered, was
the last man to use the fine old-fashioned stag-
hounds of that country, he was more than once
exposed to imminent peril in saving a peasant,
partly intoxicated, from certain death. They
had found in Brembridge Wood, near Castle
Hill, a noble deer, strong and swift as the winds
of the moor, and bearing a grand head with
"three upon top" on each horn. After a sharp
burst of two and a half hours, they brought him
to bay in a small brook near Bratton Mill ; and

298 MEMOIR OF

there for a considerable time, he defended
himself against all odds with so much vigour
and effect, that several of the most adventurous
hounds were more or less severelv maimed in
the repeated and desperate charges he made
upon them.

And now the struggle had all but taken a
more serious turn : an old man, muddled with
cider, in spite of all warning, went up, and
attempted to caress the infuriated animal,
addressing it thus : " Sober, now, sober, don't
'ee be scared, my pretty dear." On which
the deer, mistrusting his motive, made a fierce
lunge at him ; but missing a vital spot, drove
his brow^-antler right through the old fellow's
hand ; and, then and there, would have cer-
tainly killed him but for Russell's immediate
help. He rushed in, collared the deer by the
root of his near-side antler, dragged the man's
hand off the reeking tine, and then rolled over
and over with the deer into the bed of the
brook ; the animal forcing him under a foot-
bridge and kneeling upon him in the water.

At length the deer shifted his position,
releasing Russell, and bringing his back to bear
against the wall of a thatched house, where,
like a Turk entrenched, he again stood his
ground with a lowered beam and defiant air.
But " the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong ; " for anon a farmer, called

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 299

Skinner, mounting the roof in his rear, with
rope in hand, gave token that the curtain was
about to fall and bring the last act to its tragic
end.

And here most touching was the spectacle
which the poor beast presented ; as, winding
the man on the roof behind him, he turned
round, stood on his hind legs against the side
of the house, and looked his enemy in the face ;
as if he would have said, in the extremity of
despair, " Ah ! that's foul play — a cowardly trick
to win your game."

The noose then fell ; but his noble head —
which may still be seen adorning the hall of
Baron's Down — yet exists to tell the tale and
remind Mr. Lucas and his friends of the
perilous incidents which occasionally attend the
chase of the wild red deer.

Mr. Collyns, although he gives neither date
nor minute particulars, probably alludes to the
same event at Bratton Mill, where, he says, ** I
remember seeing a deer, when ' set up ' by
hounds, thrust his brow-antler through the
hand of a man who attempted to secure him;"
and then he adds: "On one occasion when I
was out, the late Sir Arthur Chichester, then
the Master of the Hounds, had a very narrow
escape from serious injury. We had brought
to bay an old stag, after a severe chase. The
deer posted himself on a high bank, from which

30O MEMOIR OF

exalted position he set the hounds at defiance.
No rope was at hand, and whilst some of the
party were absent in quest of one, the master
rode up, and tried to dislodge the deer from
his vantage-ground with his whip. I saw the
animal gather himself for a charge, and had
just time to successfully warn Sir Arthur against
the danger he was in. He turned aside, and
in a moment the deer leapt from the bank,
just missed the horse's head, as it was being
turned away, and with tremendous force plunged
his antlers deep into the ground."

Short of death, one of the most frightful
injuries ever witnessed by Russell was inflicted
on a hound bred by Lord Portsmouth, and
called Falconer, in taking an old stag at Waters-
meet. Standing at bav above his knees, in the
East Lynn river, he drove his long brow-
antler up to its hilt in the hound's side ;
and then, in withdrawing it, brought out that
portion of the interior known as "the apron"
clinging to the rough inequalities of the blood-
stained horn. Almost sickened by the sight,
Russell put his whip around the hound's neck,
led him aside, and having drawn out the
apron as far as it would come, he cut it off
with a pair of scissors. He then inquired
if any gentleman or lady present happened
to have a needle and thread about them ; on
which a gentleman immediately came forward

u
vv

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL 301

and produced a huswife well furnished with
the said articles.

"Any surgeon present," again inquired Russell,
who will sew up the wound?"

I am one," responded another readily, "and
will do my best for the poor hound."

The operation having been quickly and well
performed. Falconer was then conveyed to
Simonsbath by a passing cart ; and, wonderful
to relate, at the end of a fortnight from that
day, was taken out again as a tufter by the
huntsman, John Babbage, who pleaded that he
absolutely needed his services, at the same time
pronouncing him to be "fit as a fiddle" for that
or any other work. Nor did the hound ever
afterwards appear a pin the worse for the cruel
treatment he had so bravely survived.

The open and often stormy Severn-sea being
the last refuge of a deer when driven by hounds
to the rock-bound coast of his native wilds, it
has been Russell's lot, first and last, to witness
many a remarkable instance of buoyancy and
strength exhibited both by the stag and hind
in battling with the waves and struggling to
reach the opposite shore. On the 22nd of
October, 1876, Russell wrote : —

" Letters just come in — one from Mrs. King-
lake, who, with her husband, son, and daughters
has been staying at Porlock for staghunting
since August — to say that a stag we ran to

302 MEMOIR OF

sea above Porlock Weir, a fortnight ago, was
drowned ; that the body was washed across the
Channel and picked up on the Welsh coast.
He didn't run three miles before he went to
sea, and I saw him battling with the waves,
now riding on their topmost crest, and now lost
in foam ; there was a very heavy sea on, not
half a minute before he went down. William
Deane was by my side, and said, 'He has sunk.'
My reply was, ' If he has, 'tis a very unusual
circumstance ; for I have known a deer out in
the sea for four hours, after he has stood two
hours before the hounds ; and have seen him
come in again apparently quite fresh.' He was
drowned, however, if he did not sink ; and so
ends my tale."

The buoyancy of a deer in water, even w^hen
dead, is not a little remarkable. His body,
though the lungs are no longer inflated with
air, will still float on the surface ; while that
of an otter, an animal commonly but falsely
supposed to be amphibious, will sink to the
bottom like a lump of lead. Mr. Collyns relates
that a stag "getting on Slippery Rock fell over
the cliffs and killed himself ; fortunately no
hound followed him. The tide was up, and
he was carried out to sea for a considerable
distance ; and the boat sent out to secure
him arrived just in time to save him
from the hands of those on board a smack

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 303

going up Channel, who had all but reached
him."

Russell corroborated the fact : " CoUyns'
version is quite a correct one. A deer will
float — not ' swim ' — for a long time after he is
dead, both in the sea and in a river. I have
witnessed it often, and so have manv other
Devonshire sportsmen ; but I have never seen
an otter float after he was dead."

Russell, in alluding to a deer that went to
sea for four hours and returned all the better
for his cruise, refers to a gallant old stag found
by Sir Arthur Chichester's hounds and driven
through Badge worthy, over the moor to Lyn-
mouth. Six or eight couple of hounds were
pressing him sorely, when he managed by a few
mighty bounds to reach the pinnacle of an
isolated rock, from which, with a firm footing
for himself, he bid defiance to all his foes.

A man, however, with a well-aimed pebble,
dislodged him at length from his perilous perch ;
and, as the deer bounded of¥ like an eagle into
space, Russell shut his eyes, that he might not
see him, as he fully expected, dashed to atoms.
On looking again, however, to his great delight
he saw the animal striding away towards the
sea, where he remained for four hours, stand-
ing boldly out for the opposite coast. But he
was taken and brought back long before he
reached it.

304 MEMOIR OF

Another stag, less fortunate in his jump, was
so beset by men and hounds, near the same
romantic spot, that he bounded over a road-
wall, and fell hundreds of feet, down into the
rocky Lynn, every bone in his body being
smashed by the fall.

Again, Russell speaks of a deer which, after
a grand run from Badge worthy, went to sea
near Countisbury Church ; when a sloop bound
for Swansea fell in with him, the men of which
threw a rope over his antlers and carried him
captive into that port. Alas ! a week after-
wards, the noble animal is said to have suffered
the ignominy of being "uncarted" and turned
out before a Welsh pack of hounds.

Nor was this act of piracy an exceptional
case. Russell, on another occasion, saw a hind
picked up by a fishing-smack in the face of all
the hunters, who, posted on the cliff above,
shouted and signalled in vain to the daring
thieves. The animal was carried to Pill, sold
there, and turned into venison.

In the rough and imperfect sketch of Rus-
sell set forth in this memoir, his devotion to
the chase and its attendant mysteries has thus
far purposely formed its chief foreground ; but
there is another feature of his character which,
though not yet touched upon, is entitled to
equal prominence in the picture ; and that is,
his devotion to women and children. In a

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 305

spirited article, entitled " A Day with the
Devon and Somerset Staghounds," contributed
to Baily's Magazine of September, 1874, the
writer (" E. K.") alludes very pleasantly to one
of the numerous instances in which Russell
has taken children under his especial tutelage,
and literally guided their first steps in the
hunting-field. It runs thus :

"Then comes the parson of the hunt — what
west countryman does not know, without my
naming him, the best and keenest of sports-
men ? Up he comes, with a smile and a joke
for all. As he answers the numerous greetings
he receives, I catch his cheery acknowledgments :
'Very well, thank ye.' 'How's the missis? Long
ride for an old fellow like me, eh ? rode all the
way from home this morning — a good thirty
mile, and more.' ' Going to ride all the way
back too ? ' ' Yes, the old horse looks well,
don't he " Doesn't change much more than his
master — last my time, anyhow. Hullo ! that's
your little girl ? Your first day, my dear ?
Then we must blood you ; follow me, and you
shall see the kill. Oh ! I'll take care of her,
never fear ! ' So I see the plucky little girl
made utterly happy — she is to be piloted over

the moor by the Rev. , and her joy is

complete."

And as to women, it boots not where, how,
or when ; but his gallantry to them, in the field

V

3o6 MEMOIR OF

or out of it, at home or abroad, has been
through hfe that of a Launcelot, anxious ever
to serve, succour, and defend them to the best
of his manly power. "God bless them all!"
he might say with Sterne ; " there is not a
man upon earth who loves them better than
I do."

Nor has the sentiment been ill-requited on
their part ; for no matter in what class of life
the maid or matron may be, if haplv she have
seen much of his company, her eye will kindle
evermore with a look of sympathy and pleasant
memories at the bare mention of Russell's
name.

His readiness and ability to help ladies in
the stag-hunting field have been already alluded
to ; and from the eulogistic terms in wiiich he
never failed to speak of a few as " elegant and
accomplished horsewomen," who, whatever the
pace, were wont to take a brilliant lead and
look to no one for help, so long as their horses
could gallop and they could help themselves,
the writer is sanguine enough to hope that the
liberty will be condoned, if he venture to
bracket a very imperfect list of their names in
company with that of their devoted and
staunchest admirer. First and foremost, then,
comes Miss Kinglake, now the Hon. Mrs. T.
Fitzwilliam ; "one of the best," as Russell
writes, " I ever saw, from find to finish, on

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 307

Exmoor." Then, her promising young sister,
Miss Beata Kinglake, Lady Lovelace, Mrs.
Henry Dene, Mrs. Pulsford Browne, of Kirk
Bramwith, near Doncaster — "a lady who lived
for many years at East Anstey, near Dulverton,
and hunted with Lord Portsmouth's and the
Staghounds — a very fine rider and one who
went as straight over a country as a bird on
wing. She ahvays called me 'Uncle John'; and
once or twice in a moor fog did me the
honour to accept my pilotage."

Then there w^as Miss Clara Jekyll, Miss
Hole, now Mrs. Wynch, Mrs. John Luttrell,
Miss Leslie, the three Miss Taylors, of Dul-
verton, Miss Julia Carwithen, now Mrs. Pyne-
Coffin, Miss Luttrell, Miss Widborne, Mrs.
Louis and Mrs, Russell Riccard, Mrs. James
Turner, Miss Vibart, Lady Lindsay, Mrs. Proctor-
Baker, Miss Constance Baxendale, and Mrs.
Lock-Roe, an elegant horsewoman, and one of
Russell's dearest friends. Then, last in the
list, but rarely so in the chase, come Mrs.
Granville Somerset and her sister Mrs. Chol-
mondeley, two ladies whom Russell describes
"as worthy of niches in the grandest temple
ever dedicated to the Forest Queen."

Of a fall that befell Mrs. Cholmondeley,
where the two streams meet above Badge-
worthy — once, as Mr. Blackmore tells us, the
stronghold of the Doones — Russell always spoke

3o8 MEMOIR OF

with a shudder. The hounds had found in
Hawkcombe ; and, in spite of a hurricane of
wind that was blowing at the time, had brought
their stag at a trimming pace over the moor down
to that old point where so many have "soiled"
or sought refuge in the surrounding combes.

Mrs. Cholmondeley, with Lord Cork near
her, was well in front, when Russell, at a short
distance behind them, beheld the lady riding
directly for the stream, and, to his dismay,
attempting to cross it at a dangerous and im-
practicable spot. A high and almost perpen-
dicular boulder stood erect on the opposite
bank, bidding defiance to any steed short of
Pegasus, and presenting a barrier only to be
mounted by a scaling-ladder. Russell shouted
till he was hoarse, but in vain — his warning was
drowned in the storm ; for, Mrs. Cholmondeley
putting her horse resolutely at it, the gallant
animal did his utmost ; but, failing to reach the
summit of the rock, fell heavily back into the
boiling Lynn, and so saved his own bones ;
while the lady was hurled to the ground with
an appalling thud.

Russell's blood curdled at the sight, but he
leapt from his saddle and stood by her side
in another instant. Anxiously awaiting the re-
covery of her breath, and being fully persuaded
that some fracture of the limbs must have taken
place, Russell said, "Move your right arm; now

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 309

the other : your right foot ; the other. Bravo 1
not a bone broken there. Now stand up."

The ladv did so ; and, though much bruised,
in a short time was Httle the worse for her
perilous adventure. Lord Cork — a hard man
in his day, and who must have seen more bad
falls than most men, if not during his Master-
ship of the Queen's Buckhounds, at least with
the Christchurch drag — was so shocked by the
sight that, on finding the lady was well attended
to, he turned his horse's head and rode home.

In the fifth room of the Borghese Palace, at
Rome, hangs an exquisite picture by Domeni-
chino ; the finest, perhaps, he ever painted on a
mythical subject; it is entitled "The Chase of
Diana." The figure of the goddess, who stands
prominently forward, is the very personification of
beauty. She is attended by a bevy of nymphs ;
and to one, whose superior skill as a huntress
has' just been tested, the goddess is awarding the
appropriate prize of a bow and quiver.

But if, as of old in the valleys of Ida, the
Forest Queen were at present to hold High
Court in one of the ferny combes of Exmoor,
attended, of course, by the fair votaries men-
tioned above, her Majesty would be sorely
puzzled, so Russell thought, to decide on which
of them to bestow the first prize —

" For, all so good, 'twere hard indeed to tell
Who figured first, or who should bear the bell."

CHAPTER XIV.

Visits Marham Hall and Sandringham — Dances the Old
Year out and the New Year in with the Princess
OF Wales — Manly Traits in the Young Princes —
Sorrow at Home — His Clerical Life — Tiverton
Old Boys' Meetings.

Think you the chase unfits him for the Church ?

Attend him there, and you will find his tones
Such as become the place ; nay, you may search

Throug'h many counties from cathedral thrones,
And lofty stalls where solemn prebends perch,

To parish aisles which are not cells of drones,
But echo the sweet sound of psalm and prayer,
And you will hear no voice more earnest there.

H. S. Stokes.

In the early autumn of 1877, Frank Goodall,
the Queen's huntsman, accompanied by Mrs.
Goodall, paid him a visit at Tordown ; and
on Tuesday, the 14th of August, Russell, who
was to meet his guests at Cloutsham Ball —
that being the first grand fixture for the
season, the opening day of the Devon and
Somerset Staghounds — varied his usual mode of
going to cover by taking a servant with him
and driving thither in a gig — a conveyance and
attendant expressly meant for Mrs. Goodall's
return to Tordown ; while, at the same time, he
led a spare horse to carry Goodall during the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 311

chase. Although now in the eighty-second year
of his age, so unusual a sight as Russell upon
wheels attracted, of course, universal attention
among the large field assembled at the meet ;
some of whom jumped at once to the conclusion,
not an unnatural one too, that the long distance
to cover on horseback, just twenty five miles,
had at length become too much even for him ;
others, with more humour, but with little ground
for their advice, prescribed a- list-shoe, giving
him a broad hint that, if port wine were his
liquor, the sooner he put on a muzzle the
better.

An old stag-hunting farmer, however, wiiose
feelings were really touched by the spectacle,
created no little amusement, as he said, pathe-
tically, " Zee ! there he go'th, Passen Rissell in
a chaise ; never seed un afore off a horse's
back, never. But there, us must all come to't ;
yeu can't have tew forenoons to one day."

Grand and striking, indeed, must have been
the contrast to Frank Goodall's eye betw-een
the deep, romantic combes of that country and
the gentle verdant slopes of Sunning Hill; be-
tween the wild, tumbling torrent of the Lynn
and the "silver-winding way " of Father Thames ;
as, among water-lilies, weeping-willows, and

"Meadows trim with daisies pied,"

he glides gently and pensively seawards, lin-
gering still on his downw^ard course, as if loth

312 MEMOIR OF

to leave the peaceful and happy scene. Fair
and graceful, however, as the landscape is in
the region of Windsor, Frank Goodall must
have been more than a philosopher if a twinge
of envy did not seize him as he viewed the
sparkling brooks, the ferny combes, and the
open, heathery wastes of Exmoor, so attractively
romantic, and, above all, so suitable to the
chase of the wild red deer ; and on comparing,
as he must have done, these rough and almost
trackless hunting-grounds in the west with the
fair and cultivated enclosures enriching the
valley of the Thames, how ardently he must
have longed, on behalf of the latter, for a touch
of old Nature as he saw her then, in her
russet and untrimmed garb, in the solitude of
the glens, and the grand, sweeping moorlands,
"immeasurably spread" around him!

But it was far from Russell's object that
his guest should moralize in such fashion ; he
brought him there to enjoy a good day's
hunting ; but that, unfortunately, Mr. Bisset
and his hounds were, for a w^onder, unable to
show^ him. So many deer were on foot in
Horner Wood, that, when at five p.m.,

"The antlered monarch of the waste"

did at length vouchsafe to exhibit his royal
head to the public, he soon managed to beat
the pack by a change in the depths of Badge-
worthy. Consequently, the sport, on the whole.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 313

proving indifferent, Goodall and he turned
homeward, but did not get back to Tordown
before the late hour of eleven at night.

On the following Friday, August 17th,
Russell again met the staghounds in Hawk-
combe Head ; and if, on the last occasion, he
had enjoyed but scant opportunity of satisfying
the "field," he must now have convinced them,
beyond all doubt, that his power of endurance
in the saddle was vet vigorous as ever ; and
that, notwithstanding the w^eight of years he
carried so bravely, to challenge him in a long
day's work on horseback would still be " more
than the stoutest dare."

He had ridden nearly thirty miles to cover
over highways and byways such as MacAdam
would have blushed to own, remained with the
hounds all day, and then, from a yet farther
distance, had returned to his own homestead ;
where, at half-past ten, he sat down to dinner
without a symptom of exhaustion, and then fed
heartily, as a man might be expected to feed
through the enclosure of whose lips no food had
passed since seven o'clock that morning.

Having followed him thus far in his fox-and-
stag-hunting career as closely as the scent would
serve and materials permit, it will be necessary
now to revert to a period somewhat previous to
that with which the writer has latterly been
dealing ; and although Russell himself might

314 MEMOIR OF

have said that a for'rad cast is, as it ought to
be, one of the golden rules of a foxhunter, still,
exceptional cases do occur even in that go-ahead
school, when its non-observance becomes not
only admissible, but at times imperative.

Russell had found a fox on a certain occa-
sion somewhere in the neighbourhood of High
Bray, when, just before the hounds had killed
him, he was joined by one John Zeal, a man
who acted as factotum to Mr. T. Palmer
Ackland, on w^iose business he was then going
to Bideford. Now John, as Russell well knew,
was an enthusiastic foxhunter, and chuckled
cheerily over his good luck in having fallen in
even with the tail-end of so pleasant an episode
during his solitary ride.

Seeing him so elated, Russell said, "You'd
better stop, John, and see me find another
fox."

The man hesitated a moment, as if weighing
the urgency of his mission against the prospect
of sport — duty in one scale and pleasure in
the other.

" But will you kill him, sir, if I stop ? " in-
quired John, gradually yielding to the stronger
impulse.

" Oh, yes ! I'll kill him ; so, come along."

" But will you promise to kill him ? " repeated
the man, still wavering ; only say the word and
I know you'll do it."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 315

"Then," said Russell, I'll promise to kill
him."

That was enough ; up went the scale of duty
to the beam ; John instantly turned his horse's
head and followed the hounds. Russell kept
his word, had a line run and killed his fox ;
but, alas ! John Zeal found himself, when they
finished, not only twenty long miles away from
Bideford, but on a horse utterly used up and
scarcely able to crawl back to his own stable.

The cause of his servant's detention became,
of course, known to Mr. Palmer Ackland ; nor
is it at all unlikely that Russell's chance of
promotion to a better living was more or less
unfavourably affected by that circumstance. The
rectory of High Bray had fallen vacant, and
being in the gift of that gentleman, he was
asked by a mutual friend to give it to Russell.

"No!" he said, somewhat curtly; "not to
Russell ; I shall be hunted to death if I give
it to him."

Although living in times when cock-fighting
was regarded as no crime, but, on the contrary,
was upheld as a popular pastime, in which the
squirearchy of Devon played a conspicuous part ;
when friends of his own, gentlemen of such
standing in the county as the Hon. Newton
Fellowes, Willoughby Stawell, Stucley Lucas,
and Dr. Troyte, of Huntsham, held annual bouts
for that purpose at their respective homes ;

3i6 MEMOIR OF

and when cocks of the choicest blood reared
expressly for the pit, were put out to walk, as
hounds are at the present dav, Russell held
aloof from the meetings, maintaining that he
saw no sport in the fierce and savage ex-
hibitions.

And with respect to the turf, perhaps no
man ever loved to see an honest struggle
between two good horses better than Russell ;
but on horse-racing in general, coupled as it is
inseparably with betting and other dark doings,
he has ever looked with a wary eye. In
alluding to it he would say, " Have a care, my
old friend ; that is a game in which the best
horse is not always the winner — very different
from hunting, with twenty couple of hounds
racing over the moor; there's no 'pulling' nor
' roping ' then ; every man does his best to get
at them. That's the racing to my mind —
nothing so honest under the sun."

It would be travelling beyond the compass
and object of this memoir to tell of the various
agricultural meetings and hound-shows at which
Russell took a prominent part, as judge, during
the last twenty years. Sutftce it to say, with
respect to the latter, that in Yorkshire he
acted twice in that capacity ; twice at Plymouth ;
once at the Crystal Palace, and lastly in Dorset-
shire, where he was invited in March, 1878, to
judge the puppies of the Blackmoor Vale Hunt,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 317

At that meeting what reminiscences of fifty
years ago must have rolled back on his memory !
what thoughts of his two gifted friends, the
Rev. Harrv Farr Yeatman, of Stock, and George
Templer, of Stover — the latter his beau-ideal of
a gentleman huntsman, and the former the well-
beloved master and founder of that hunt — each
a consummate judge of all that pertained to
hounds. He must have wondered, too, if one
drop of the Old Stover blood — that of Guardsman
or Pantaloon — could still be traced in the veins
or looks of those young beauties, over which he
now lingered with a fixed and loving eye. Nor
could that memorable ride to Bath on the
Warminster poster have been forgotten at such
a time ; nav, every incident of the journey
must have recurred to him as freshly as on the
dark night when he first crossed that garran's
back.

At an agricultural meeting held at Exeter
some years ago, Russell, while busily engaged
in inspecting the blood-stock of a neighbouring
squire, was told by an old friend that he had
brought a young cousin to the show-yard who
was very anxious to be introduced to him.
"And let me tell you," said the friend, by way
of commendation, the young man being close
at his elbow, "that he is an ardent sportsman,
and has already broken his leg by a fall in
hunting."

3i8 MEMOIR OF

"Then," said Russell, "he ought to be bred
from," giving him, as he did so, a hearty
shake bv the hand.

When the Royal Agricultural Society of
England held its meeting at Plymouth in 1865,
Russell, by command of the Prince of Wales,
was invited by Admiral Sir Henry Keppel to
meet his Royal Highness at dinner, the Admi-
ralty House at Devonport being the rendezvous
for the distinguished party assembled on that
occasion. The banquet appears to have been
an unusually pleasant one ; nor is it at all extra-
ordinary that it should have been so, for, in
addition to the Prince's wonted affability and
love of hunting, the Admiral and his Flag- Lieut.,
Lord Charles Beresford, besides being the best
of company, were both men after Russell's own
heart — enthusiastic sportsmen, and regular atten-
dants on Mr. Trelawny's hounds.

In strolling through the show-yard on the
following day, Russell whispered to a friend
that " The ship commanded by two such
officers must be a jolly boat indeed, for they
were the jolliest set of fellows he had met for
many a day."

Sailors, when they take to hunting, pro-
verbially do it con amore, and certainly it may
be inferred that those gentlemen were no
exception to that rule ; for when they left
Plymouth for other quarters, Mr. Trelawny

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 319

could ill disguise the regret he felt at losing
two members of his ''field" whom he valued
so much for their companionable qualities, not
only with hounds, but at ''table-board."

Russell, then, had fallen fairly on his legs
by dropping into so genial a groove ; and it is
quite certain that, if form and ceremony had
been the order of the day, instead of good-
fellowship, seasoned, it may be, here and there,
with a spice of horse-and-hound talk, he would
never have enjoyed himself as he did, nor so
cordially appreciated the honour done him by
that gracious invitation.

Not long afterwards, however, he was destined
to see something more of His Royal Highness's
society than, from his position in life — that of a
rural, west country parson, only known to fame
within the limits of the hunting world — his
homespun habits could have led him to expect.

In the winter of 1873, by the kindness of
his friend, Mr. Harry Villebois, he was invited
to spend a week at Marham Hall, the ancient
seat of that gentleman's family, "to meet," as
the invitation expressed it, " the Prince of
Wales and a party of friends." It is doubtful,
however, if even so fair a promise of hospi-
tality, combined with the prospect of meeting
such goodly company would alone have tempted
him to turn his back for six hunting days on
Lord Portsmouth's hounds, or Mr. Froude

320 MEMOIR OF

Bellew's, or the " Stars of the West," and that,
too, in mid-season ; but when Mr. Villebois
added, " and have a day or two, with the West
Norfolk pack," he added a bait that w^as irresis-
tible and Russell jumped at it as a trout would
at a May-fiy.

It boots not here to tell how rapidly that
pleasant visit was brought to a close ; the
happiest moments have always the fleetest
wings, and are apt to take flight ere we can
well enjoy, or even realize, their presence. The
day before the party broke up, however, a most
agreeable surprise awaited Russell ere his steps
were actually turned on his long journey home-
wards. The Prince, coming up to him, said,
" How long are you going to stay here, Mr.
Russell."

"I must be at home on Saturday, sir, without
fail."

"Then," said the Prince, turning to Mr.
Villebois, " you had better bring him over to
our ball on Friday."

Accordingly, instead of returning on that day
to Devonshire, as he meant to have done,
Russell hunted with Mr. Villebois' hounds,
dined at Marham, and at night, accompanied
by his host, whisked off to the ball at Sand-
ringham. It was a late and lively affair, the
dancing being kept up with unflagging gaiety,
and Russell taking an active part in it till four

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 321

in the morning, when " God Save the Queen "
sounded the signal to halt, and reminded the
guests of that salutary hint so well given in
Hudibras, that

"Night is the sabbath of mankind
To rest the body and the mind ; "

a hint which all, with the exception of Russell,
seemed quite ready to adopt forthwith ; but he,
at that chilly hour of the morn, buttoning on his
top-coat — the wool of which had been grown at
Eggesford, and, when manufactured into good
broadcloth, had been presented to him by Lady
Portsmouth — started for Lynn ; and taking the
first train thence for London, he reached home
at a late hour that same night, "All the better,"
as he told his friends the next day, " for change
of air and a pleasant outing."

That the Prince and Princess were not un-
favourably impressed with their west-country
guest, during his first fiying visit, may be
inferred from the circumstance that, shortly
before his departure, the Prince sent Colonel
Ellis to invite him again to Sandringham for
the approaching Christmas w^eek : "And, as we
hope to hear him preach," said the Prince, "tell
him to put a sermon in his pocket before he
leaves home."

A storv went the rounds of the London
clubs, that Russell, on accepting the Prince's
invitation, inquired of Colonel Ellis how he

w

322 MEMOIR OF

was to get to Sandringham from the Wolferton
station ?

"The Prince will send his carriage for you,"
replied the gallant equerry.

" Be good enough to write that down in my
pocket-book," said Russell, "that there may be
no mistake."

Colonel Ellis did so.

"Now," said Russell, "please to add 3^our
initials."

The tale travelled into Devonshire, and when
it first reached Russell's ears he laughed aloud,
saying, " A very good story against me, // only
it were true."

The annual tenants' ball being about to take
place on the last night of the year, a flutter
of excitement pervaded the neighbourhood for
many a mile round Sandringham, and expecta-
tion rose, not on tiptoe only, but to fever-heat,
in anticipation of that joyous event. It was
looked upon as the fete of the season, when the
Prince and Princess were wont to mingle merrily
in the dance, and delight their country guests
not less by the welcome they received than by
the simplicity, and almost homeliness of their
own manners. No wonder, too, if Russell felt
somewhat stirred by the coming event ; nor if,
remembering the seventy-eight winters of his
life, he might have wished for the magic caul-
dron of Medea to restore him again to the vigour

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 323

of youth, and bring back, at least for one night,
that "freshness of morning" which, with *' her
clouds and her tears," the poet tells us is

"Worth evening^'s best light."

That would certainly have been his first
wish had he foreseen the honour that awaited
him at the forthcoming ball. On that night, a
little before the clock struck twelve, and a few
minutes before the old year had passed away
for ever, Russell received an intimation that the
Princess was about to favour him with her hand,
and welcome the incoming year by taking him
for her partner.

It would be trespassing beyond the clue
limits of this memoir to take more than a
passing glance at the mysteries of that festive
scene, the success of which, had the Muses
been present, Terpsichore herself would have
been charmed to witness. Russell, inspirited
by his happy lot, and forgetting all time, except
that of the music, stepped out like a four-year-
old ; and if, in the course of that brief enjoyment,
he had not been the object of many longing,
not to say envious, eyes, there must have been
Anchorites in that assembly with whom he
certainly would have had no sympathy.

It was whispered about by that little bird,
to which, from our earliest years, we have all
been indebted for so much authentic informa-
tion, that Russell on hearing the tow^er clock

324 MEMOIR OF

announce the birth of the new vear, turned to
his fair partner and said, " Now I can say what
no man else can ever say again."

''And wliat may that be?" inquired the
Princess, with an interested look.

" That I've had the honour of dancing out
the old year and dancing in the new (1874)
with your Royal Highness."

"Quite true," replied the Princess; "no one
else can say that but yourself,"

But Fame, that worst of all gossips, relates
of him on that occasion — though he himself
stoutly repudiated the impeachment — that, in
setting the Princess right as to some remark
she had made, he forgot for the moment whom
he was addressing and, said, " No, no, my dear ;
'tisn't so." But if, in truth, his tongue did so
slip, the pure Devonshire stram, in w^hich he
was wont to use that familiar expression in
speaking to ladies, if it did not astonish, must
have amused her Roval Highness amazinglv.

At dinner, on the first day of that week's
visit, Russell's country manners cropped out
somewhat conspicuously. He had been helped
to fish, and, wishing for more, had sent his
plate off for a second "helping," when the
Prince, observing the vacancy before him, asked
if he didn't like fish.

" Yes, sir," replied Russell, " Fm very fond
of fish. Fve been helped once, and Fve sent

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 325

my plate up a second time ; and now I re-
member, that's the very thing my wife charged
me, on leaving home, not to do."

The Prince laughed, but took care that every
day afterwards Russell should be helped a
second time to his favourite dish.

Under the conviction, in which he was not
far wrong, that his guest, like every orthodox
parson of the old type, would prefer a glass of
good "red port wine" to Bordeaux of the finest
vintage, or to Falernian, though " kept with a
hundred keys," the Prince called his attention
to a bottle of '20 port, of which, on being
invited to say how he liked it, he at once
expressed his unqualified approval. The next
day, however, a different and a somewhat
thinner port was put before him, and again the
Prince asked his opinion of that wine.

"Very good, sir," replied Russell; "but not
quite so stout a wine as the port you gave me
yesterday."

The Prince at once, inferring that his guest
preferred the more generous wine, ordered the
bottle to be changed, and thenceforth Russell
enjoved his glass of '20 port daily at the royal
table. He was, however, no gourmet, plain food
and sound home-grown cider having been the
chief diet on which he depended through life ;
and these, sw^eetened by mountain air and strong
exercise, appeared to agree w^ith him admirably.

326 MEMOIR OF

After dinner, on the first day of his arrival
at Sandringham, a large party being present,
Russell became the subject of a harmless, but
very amusing, practical joke, which, as he said
himself, '' for the life of him he could not at
first understand." Mr. Anthony Hamond's fox-
hounds were appointed to meet in the neigh-
bourhood on the following day, and that gentle-
man being then present, a telegram was brought
in, which the Prince, amid the breathless silence
of his guests, opened and read aloud. It ran
thus : —

' '' Bill George, Canine Castle, Kensal Green,
to Anthony Hamond, Esq., at Sandringham,
Wolferton. — The Rev. John Russell having dis-
appointed me in not calling for a bagman as
he passed through London this afternoon, shall
send him down to-morrow by first train to
Wolferton. Hope he'll arrive fresh."

Such a telegram, as might be expected,
called forth a peal of merriment at Russell's
expense, but by whom it was concocted remains
a mystery to the present day.

At table, the carte-de-uienii, exquisitely de-
signed, and very superior to anything Russell
had ever yet seen, attracted his especial admira-
tion. On the top appeared Sandringham House
and the date, with a border on one side filled in
with game, and all beautifully painted. " Isn't
that very pretty?" said the Prince, observing

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 327

his guest's eye fascinated by the design.
" It was done bv a bedridden girl, and vou
must take that home to Mrs. Russell from me."

On the Sunday, as requested to do so by
their Royal Highnesses, he preached at Sand-
ringham Church, the Rev. W. Lake Onslow,
the rector, placing his pulpit at his service, and
afterwards thanking him cordially for his able
and interesting discourse. And that the Prince
and Princess must have been equallv impressed
by the clear enunciation and earnest manner of
the preacher there can be little doubt ; though,
on that point, if anything were said, history is
silent.

Perhaps no portion of his time was more
pleasantly spent than the quiet half-hour he
passed one morning with the Princess, who,
followed by her two eldest bovs, then respec-
tively nine and eight years of age, invited him
to accompany them to the stables and inspect
the stud. *' It was a delightful sight," said
Russell, relating the circumstance to an old
friend, shortly afterwards, " to witness the utter
freedom of the voungsters as thev tumbled
and plunged amongst the straw, and ever and
anon begged for a bit of chopped carrot which
the Princess carried in a basket, in order to
feed some gentle favourite on which they had
set their hearts. A more natural sight I never
saw in my life ; and, mark my words, those two

328 MEMOIR OF

boys will be as fond of horses as ever Castor
and Pollux were."

The agreeable party at Sandringham, on
that occasion, was brought to a close by the
departure of the Prince, who, taking Russell
with him as far as London, started off for St.
Petersburg, to attend the wedding of his brother,
H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, an event that
took place on the 23rd January, 1874.

Miss L. T , a lady who had read a letter

of Russell's describing the pleasure of his visit
to Sandringham, wrote thus in allusion to it :

" What a list of things he got through in
those ten days, and what a delightful picture
he gives of the family circle at S. ! I don't
wonder the P. and P. made much of their
guest, for all England may be proud of such a
man as Mr. Russell. I only wish there were
hundreds like him. ' Fox-hunting for ever ! '
say I, if it helps to make such men."

In the autumn of that year, 1874, a heavy
sorrow awaited him — the heaviest he had known
through life — by the serious illness and subse-
quent death of Mrs. Russell ; with whom, had
she lived but one year longer, he might have
celebrated his golden wedding-day. On the
22nd of October, he thus wrote: — "The dear
old missis is, I grieve to say, very ill ; and I
can't leave her for many hours together. Still,
she is cheerful when anyone comes in, and ivill,

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 329

as usual, ' stir her stumps ' to make them com-
fortable. But that sort of exertion does her no
good ; and sometimes I am led to believe she
can't live through the day."

On the first of January in the following year
the long-dreaded blow fell at last ; mercifully
releasing the patient sufferer, but overwhelming
Russell with unutterable grief.

Writing subsequently at intervals to an old
friend, sometime his curate, he alludes thus
painfully to his bereavement : — " I am at home
again, though it no longer seems like home to
me, for there is a vacant chair in every room,
never again to be filled by her, the dear old
soul, to whom I was united forty-nine years ago,
come Sunday." Again : — " If the sympathv of
friendship could soothe my grief, I possess it
to a very great extent ; for I have received
upwards of a hundred letters of comfort and
condolence from friends, far and near. Among
them, one from the Prince of Wales, most kindly
and feelingly expressed."

On hearing from the friend, already so often
referred to, that he would like to see what the
Prince had said, Russell wrote as follows :

" My dear old Friend,

" I have sent a copy of the Prince's
letter to Lady W^estbury (nee Luttrell) who will
give it to you ; but, please remember, not for
publication, either before or after I ' sleep the

330 MEMOIR OF

sleep that knows not breaking.' Love to you
all."

During a portion of that eventful year (1875)
his time and thoughts were much occupied in
preaching for charitable institutions, in behalf
of which he not only took an active interest,
but proved himself, as before mentioned, a
most successful advocate. So truly, indeed,
were his services appreciated, that, at the
proposal of Earl Fortescue, he was constituted
an honorary governor of the North Devon
Hospital. '' I am worked to death," he wrote,
" at this season of the year (November) ; going
about from church to church on working days
as well as Sundays, preaching and begging for
the N. D. Infirmary and similar institutions, and
finding, when I come home, heaps of letters to
answer, but no one there to cheer me in my
labour — alone ! alone ! "

In the same year, as if well aware that
occupation is one of the main secrets of life's
happiness, he accepted the office of chaplain to
the High Sheriff of Cornwall, Mr. George
Williams, of Scorrier, who, in most compli-
mentary terms, offered him the appointment.
Of course, he rode to Bodmin, whence, in his
epigrammatic style, he thus described the duty
he had just performed : — " Here I am, doing
chaplain to the High Sheriff of Cornwall, George
Williams, M.F.H. ; and am just returned from

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 331

preaching before the Judges, Lush and Piggot,
both of whom thanked me for my ' discoose.'
I do hke Cornwall and Cornish folk ; but must
be back in my old earth by the end of the
week. A dav with the Duke will be a real
treat to me, when I come up to see you."

He alludes to the Duke of Beaufort, who,
when Russell paid the promised visit to his old
friend Davies, residing at Bath, very kindly
wrote to say he would send a horse for him
every morning to the cover side ; but, alas !
six days of hard-hearted weather forbad it ;
frost and snow covered the ground ; ' and
Russell, though rising each morn at seven to
look at a vane and hope for a thaw, went back
growling to bed. So, on that occasion, he never
once saw the Duke's hounds.

In all his letters, terse and brief as they
usually are, he displays to a remarkable degree
the power of making all who read them feel
and comprehend thoroughly what he himself
feels and what he would describe — a power said
to have been possessed by Nelson beyond any
living man of his day. In writing to a young
lady, Miss B. F. D., on the 6th of March, 1877,
he says: — "Alas! my head and neck are now
garnished with all the colours of the rainbow.
The good old horse I have so long ridden,
while galloping over a grass field, fell on his
head, and pitched me I don't know where — but

332 MEMOIR OF

certainly on my head — for my hat was ' britted
in,' and I saw more stars in the farmament
than ever was a-piit there. Ask your old daddy
to explain that to you."

Again, in the same year, . he writes thus to
a brother sportsman, and claims his sympathy :
" Last Thursday Lord Portsmouth's hounds met
at Castle Hill ; and, while they were running, I
suffered such agony in my teeth that I requested
a medical gentleman present to rid me of the
chief offender. * In lieu of a better instrument,
a bit of whipcord,' he said, Svould serve the
purpose ' ; and, verily, with that hempen ap-
pliance out he lugged the supposed culprit ; but,
alas ! it proved to be a valuable friend — a tooth
as sound as the day it was 'dropped.' You'll
pity me, I know, when I say this is not the first
time I have suffered a similar loss."

His habitual conversation, too, lacked nothing
of the epigrammatic style so conspicuous in his
letters ; in it he went straight to the mark ; and,
if called upon to make a speech, he invariably
did so in a few words, always pointed and often
humorous. " If you have anything to say, get
up and say it, and then sit down," was the
advice of the great Iron Duke ; and that was
precisely Russell's plan.

While dining with his old curate at Bath,
not long ago, with a party of gentlemen, most
of them west-country friends, one, a most

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 333

agreeable Cornishman, who was always on the
move, wandering about from place to place, and
never at home, complained to him that he did
not feel at all well, and that he thought he
should go away for change of air.

"Then," said Russell, "go home."

Had he studied the rules of " Lacon " all his
life the pithiness of his advice could scarcely
have been more complete.

In 1876 he again paid a visit to Sandringham ;
but this time there was no *' dancing the old
year out and the new year in." "The Prince's
time is so occupied," he wrote, " by a house full of
foreign grandees and other magnates, that I wonder
he can find time to pay, as he does, the most
minute attention to all." Among these Russell
found himself little at home, and of course saw
less of his royal hosts than on the former happy
occasion. He left, however, in high spirits ; the
Prince promising to come down and enjoy a day
or two with the Devon and Somerset staghounds,
and see the red deer hunted in his native wilds.

But when the season for that sport had at
length arrived, and Nature was now clothing
the deep-wooded glens of the moor in varied
and glorious apparel, burnishing the golden
furze, the ruddy heather, and even the fern-clad
rocks of Watersmeet with the loveliest of
autumn hues ; and now, when the " stag of
ten," rudely wakened by the tufters from his

334 MEMOIR OF

long and idle summer dream, is roused from
his leafy haunts and forced into view, dis-
playing, to the hunter's delight, his big haunches,
stately form, and magnihcent head ; the bad
news reached Dunster Castle, where quarters
had been prepared for him, that the Prince was
unable to leave home, owing to the serious
illness of one of his boys. So the project then
fell through, to the great disappointment of
Russell and every other stag-hunter, man and
woman — from the fair maids of Taunton to the
hardy yeomen of the Western moors.

To enter minutely into the abstract question
of Russell's clerical life would scarcely be con-
sonant with the general tenor of this memoir ;
still, as all his life he represented a phase of
English character which, by the moderation of
his opinions, and the unconventional manliness
of his conduct, was a daily protest against the
forms of one party and the cant of another —
against Stiggins on one side and " dear Mr.
Oriel" on the other — a brief allusion to it
cannot be avoided.

To hold the line and maintain a steady
middle course amid the host of skirters, now
dividing and confounding their flocks, not less
by the motley variety of their views than by
the contempt thev exhibit for the law of the
land, is unquestionably a feature of the highest
value in a clergyman's character at the present

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 335

time ; for never was the sectarian spirit more
rampant in the Church of England than it now
is within her pale ; and, unless a larger element
of secular ways and principles be infused into
the clerical mind, woe awaits her at no very
distant date.

The very union of Church and State
depends mainly on men who, like Russell, are
holding fast to English habits of thought and
the text of the Reformation, guarding against
divergence towards either extreme — that of the
" self-willed " formalist on one side, and that of the
shallow fanatic on the other. The narrow and. ex-
clusive grooves in which the latter move, Russell
would have denounced as not only opposed to
St. Paul's view" of being "all things to all men,"
and hence anti-Catholic, but absolutely incon-
sistent with the simple and comprehensive
religion of the New Testament.

"Our grand old Church," as a gentleman
writing to Russell remarks, " like other old
houses, will last a good many years yet, if it
be left in the hands of its original architects ;
but it will not bear an incursion of amateur
builders. ... If then," he adds, " it has
been the business of your life to maintain and
exhibit sound and not ephemeral principles, and
you have helped to sustain the reputation and
power of the English character by simply culti-
vating the gifts (which we in our blindness call

336 REV. JOHN RUSSELL.

tastes) that God has given you, are you not ' a
representative man ? ' But you will, I know, still
sing ' Non nobis Domine,' and in your modesty
confess yourself to be an 'unprofitable servant.'"

Notwithstanding the iron arm and Draconic
rule of Dr. Richards, happy still are Russell's
recollections of his school davs at Tiverton ; and
thither he went periodically to promote the
celebration of the " Old Boys' Day ; " when he
and all good Blundellians testified with grati-
tude to the beneficence of the founder, and to
the high scholastic advantages conferred by that
excellent institution. On one occasion he told the
once-dreaded Doctor — then, however, no longer
in authority, but a visitor like himself — that " he
was the only man he was ever afraid of."

" Nonsense," said Richards, good-naturedly ;
"and was I so terrible?"

"Yes," replied Russell, "you were. I've set
to with some of the hardest men in England,
and never found one who could hit like you."

At a meeting of the " Old Boys " at Tiverton,
Russell was once invited to preach the sermon,
which he accordingly did ; a local paper observing
that "the discourse was a very able one." In
addressing some remarks to the present boys, he
especially alluded to the brilliant example of Dr.
Temple, once a Tiverton scholar, and now the
bishop of the diocese — a beacon, he told them,
they should never lose sight of.

2

o

Q
O

CHAPTER XV

CONCLUSION.

In July, 1879, the valuable living of Black
Torrington was kindly offered to him by Lord
Poltimore, and with much perplexity was at
length accepted for reasons which the follow-
ing letter, written to Mr. Davies, will best
explain: —

" Tell me, my dear old friend, what shall
I do about Black Torrington ? I cannot live
on ;^'220 a year, which is all I shall have after
I have paid a certain annuity for another three
or four years. Black Torrington is a clear ;^5oo
a year, and there is a good house ; but then it
is neither Tordown nor Exmoor, and bv the
time I have settled in there, I shall perhaps be
called upon to leave it again for Swymbridge
Churchyard ! What shall I do ? How can I
leave my own people, with whom I have lived
in peace and happmess for half a century ? It
will be a bitter pill to swallow, if it must be
taken ; but it will be my poverty, and not my
will, that will consent to it."

Again, in October of the same year, he writes
from Tordown : —

" The day of my departure from this my
happy home draweth nigh, and I am fretting

X

338 MEMOIR OF

myself to death about leaving it. Old John
Squire of Accot told me on Friday that if I
we«t away from Swymbridge, it wouldn't be
long before I should be brought back again.
Cheering, very — eh ? but possibly too true to
be pleasant."

The leave-taking was a sad business between
him and his parishioners ; while their sympathy
and that of his friends farther afield, including
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, was manifested by
a handsome testimonial, which, amounting in
value to nearly ;48oOj was presented to him by
Earl Fortescue, on behalf of all the subscribers.
The ceremony took place at the Duke of Bed-
ford's mansion in Eaton Square, kindly lent by
His Grace on that interesting occasion.

Lord Fortescue said, "He had much pleasure
in performing the pleasing duty of making the
presentation ; but the occasion was to him a
sad one, owing to the removal of his old friend
from Swymbridge to another parish — fortunately,
still in the county of Devon. They would not
therefore be losing him altogether. The presen-
tation was a mark of their hearty regard,
friendship, and respect for Mr. Russell, as a
man, a sportsman, and a clergyman." His
lordship then paid a high tribute to the
reverend gentleman " for his kindly work as a
clergyman in his late parish, and for his charity
and Christian love."

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. ' 339

Russell, after papering and painting the old
rectory at Black Torrington, to which he had
now removed, commenced building a set of new
stables, at a heavy cost, and had just finished
the work, when a fire broke out in them, and
treated him to such a "house-warming" as he
had never before encountered. " I had only
just completed them," he wrote, "and at my
own expense, when in less than a hour and a
half they became a heap of ruins. There were
two horses, Simon and a valuable Irish mare in
them, besides tw^o terriers. Alas ! they are all
dead."

On Friday, the 22nd of August, 1879, he was
invited by Mr. Luttrell to meet the Prince of
Wales at Dunster Castle ; and on that day a
noble stag, roused in the depths of Hawkcombe
Head, lead them a glorious chase over the
wildest region of Exmoor, the Prince, who was
well up at the finish, being greatly delighted
with his day's sport.

Then, in the same year, on Monday, the
3rd of November, that being the opening day
of the Quorn Hounds, we find him at Kirby
Gate, mounted by his friend, Mr. Pennell-
Elmhirst, to whom he was paying a long-promised
visit.

On Tuesday, the 4th, he hunted with the
Cottesmore at Tilton Gate, and that evening
Lord Carington, the Master, and Mr. George

340 MEMOIR OF

Grey, the famous Northumberland sportsman
and rider, now Master of the Glendale, were
invited by Mr. Pennell-Ehiihirst to meet him
at dinner.

Talking of foxhounds, Mr. Grey asked Russell
if he thought the foxhound was " a distinct
species of dog from the first."

"Did he, in fact, come out of the ark?"
explained Lord Carington.

"How could he?" returned Russell; "did
not a brace of foxes come out alive ? "

On Wednesday, the 5th, he joined the
Belvoir hounds at Croxton Park, hunting that
day upon wheels.

Thursday he devoted to travelling westward,
and reaching Bath that evening, he managed
to see the Duke of Beaufort's hounds find a
fox next morning near Cross Hands ; after
which meet he started for home, intending to
wind up the week by hunting with Lord Ports-
mouth's hounds the next day.

In 1 88 1, a month or so before the Ascot week.
Colonel J. Anstruther Thomson conceived the
happy idea of bringing together under his own
roof tw^o kindred spirits, both old friends of his
own, but living widely apart and hitherto per-
sonally unacquainted with each other. They
were the Rev. John Russell and Mr. John
Whyte-Melville, Master of the Fife Hounds in
the early part of this century, and father of the

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 341

late distinguished author, whom the patriarch
hved to mourn as his only son and —

"Last scion of an antient Scottish line."

Mr. Whyte-Melville was 84, Russell in his
86th year, and so they numbered between them
170 years. Having regard to this fact Thomson,
w^hose drag was to convey them to and fro
from Slough to Ascot, deemed it advisable to
consult his two venerable guests as to the days
on which thev would like to attend the races ;
thinking it just probable that going every day
might be a turn too much for them. But not a
bit of it ; Whyte-Melville, who was first consulted,
asked how manv davs the races lasted.

" Four," replied Thomson,

"Then," said he, "I should like to go every day."

The question being put to Russell, he said,
" I too should like to go every day ; but I have
an engagement to meet a curate on the Thurs-
day, and keep it I must."

The curate, however, did not turn up ; and
Russell knew it in time to take the box-seat
beside Thomson, and go down to Ascot on that
as on every other day.

Col. Anstruther Thomson declares that his
two veterans were the life and soul of the
party ; and doubts if a coach-load so cheery
and so congenial as his own could have been
found on Ascot Heath,

Again, in the autumn of that year (1881), he

342 MEMOIR OF

hunted as usual with the Devon and Somerset
Staghounds. The meet on one occasion being
at Culbone Stables, they soon found in Pitcombe,
one of Lord Lovelace's covers ; but the hounds
dividing, the ''field" followed the body of the
pack, while Russell with one other man stuck
to a couple of hounds, and with them brought
the stag to bay near Badgery Water. " I can
well remember seeing him," writes Mr. Nicholas
Snow, the able Master of the Stars of the West,
*' as he crossed the moors from Culbone with the
leading hounds, and shall never forget his ringing
cheer as they broke from the river to Badgery, and
on to Brendon Common. Several people passed
the remark, ' Look at Russell leading across
Badgery!'" In a little more than three months
from that date he celebrated his 86th birthday,
being still in fine health and robust form.

In the following February (1882) Russell again
p^id a visit to Sandringham, and was as before
charmed with the consideration and kindness
he met with from the Prince and Princess of
Wales. On parting they presented him with a
horse-shoe diamond scarf-pin, which the Prince
put into the scarf himself, saying, as he did it,
''There now, it looks quite clerical."

" But," said Russell, bowing to the royal pair,
"may I ask if it is given conjointly?"

"Yes, of course, conjointly," replied the
Princess with a charming smile.

THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL 343

Again, in 1882, the staghounds saw him
booted and spurred at the cover-side, still cheery
and enjoying the sport ; but, as his friends
observed, much broken, and showing manifest
tokens of failing strength. With the fall of the
leaf, however, on the 15th of October, he wrote
as follows to his old friend at Bath : — " I am
going to London on Tuesday morning to marry
Mr. Curzon, the Duchess of Beaufort's nephew,
to Miss Bassett-Williams, of Pilton House ; the
ceremony is to take place in Curzon Chapel,
May Fair. When it is over I shall turn my
head homewards, and should like, if you and
the missus will have me, to break the journey
at 26, Circus, for one night only. But I am
more fit for bed than a railway carriage."

The wedding took place two days after, but
the knot was tied by other hands. On that
day, the 17th, a letter from his faithful house-
keeper, Mary Cocking, reached Bath instead of
Russell ; it ran thus : "I am grieved to say my
dear master is very unwell, and in bed since
Sunday. Three doctors are attending him, and
I fear they think him i'cry, very ill."

The attack was a critical and a dangerous
one — the beginning of the end, as his friends
rightly conjectured — but such had been his
temperate habits and fine constitution that, aided
as he was by the assiduous and scientific
attention of Dr. Linnington Ash, his medical

344 MEMOIR OF

man, he was able in January, 1883, to leave
home and go for change of air to East Anstey ;
hoping to draw fresh life and vigour from those
wild moors he had known and loved so long.

But the change did him no good ; for on the
4th of February he thus wrote : "I fear we shall
never meet again ; I don't gain strength here, as I
fancy I ought ; and overwhelmed as I am by
letters, it is pain and grief to me to write at all."

Then, on the 25th of March, having returned
to Black Torrington, he wrote his last letter to
the Author of this Memoir, — "Ten thousand
thanks to you, my very dear old friend, for
your hearty invitation to the Circus ; but if I
were to set out to-morrow in mv little carriage,
with George to drive, and Mary to keep me in
my place, I shouldn't get to Bath in a fortnight,
I am so very weak — a little trip of three miles
to Buckland Filleigh House, and back again,
quite knocked me up.

Soon afterwards he went to Bude ; but,
writes Dr. Ash, " it did him more harm than
good, and I had to hasten his return home on
Saturday — none too soon. He is weaker and
worse than I have ever seen him, but happily
is suffering no pain."

On the 24th of April the good doctor again
writes to say : " Mr. Russell is much the same
to-day. There is certainly no improvement in
his condition, nor can there be, for he takes in

REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 345

literally nothing. He is, however, rather more
conscious, I think, and has fully appreciated the
kind message from the Prince received to-day."

Night and day he was tenderly watched by
those around him, and all that human skill and
devotion could do was done by Dr. Ash. But
surely and rapidly the tide of life was now
ebbing ; the pulse fluttered, the keen eye
became clouded with a film, and graduallv,
peacefully, and without pain, the spirit of that
once manly frame stole from its tenement, took
wing, "and returned unto God who gave it."

He died on the 28th of April, 1883, in his
88th year, and was buried at Swymbridge, where
at least a thousand people attended the funeral.
Royal and costly wreaths covered the coffin ;
but the most touching of all tributes were those
of the poor cottagers, who, weeping as they
went, brought their baskets and aprons full of
wild flowers, and literally showered them into
his grave.

" No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode —
There they alike in trembling- hope repose —
The bosom of his Father and his God."

THE END.

INDEX.

ADNEY (Capt.) and the Jury, 126
Agricultural Shows, 316-318
Anstey : East and West, 79
Armchairs at Tordown made from
hides and hoofs of Russell's horses
'Billy,' 'Cottager,' and 'Monkey,'

174

Artificial Earths, 137

Arundell (Mr. Harris) of Lifton
Park, 143

Ash (Dr.), Russell's medical attend-
ant, 343-4

Auctions of Horses at the Club
Meetings, 249-50

Austin's Stables at Oxford, 41

Avern (Capt. J., R.X.), 104

BAILLIE (Rev. Alexander), 110

Barnes (Ralph), 202-205

Bayly (John), 1 10

' Beatrice ' and ' Barbara ' : Russell's

desire to possess these hounds, 247
Beale (John) huntsman, 165, 247
Beaufort (Duke of), 16, 40, 331
Bedford's (Duke of) Covers at Ends-

leigh, 143
Beresford (Lord Charles), 318
Bisset (Fenwick) Master of Stag-
hounds, 1855-S1; Letter to Russell,

291
Black Torrington: Russell appointed

to the Living of, 337 ; Fire at, 339
Blackmore (Jim) Harbourer to the

Staghounds, 282
Blundell's School, 6-14, 336
* Bold Dragoon,' a Fox which had

been turned out thirty-six times,

91, 96, 98
Boyce (Rev. John) Anecdote of, 254
Bovey and Russell start a pack of

Hounds at school, 11
Bratton Mill: Deer captured at, 299
Brendon (John) of Red Windows,

near Chillaton, 127
Brown of Hollacombe, 127
Buck (L. ) of Moreton, 145
Buckingham (Mr.), 143
Bulteel (J. C, of Flete) at Plympton

Grammar School, 5

Bulteel, 92, loi, 209, 210 ; his humor-
ous version of the Hayne supply
of foxes, 139

Bulteel (Thomas), 102

Bury (Admiral), 106, iio, 189

Bury (Mrs.), 106, iio

Bury (Miss, aftevrvards Mrs. Russell)
106, 1 10

CANN (Abraham) the Wrestler, 36

Carew (Sir Henry), 91

Carew (Rev. T.) parts with six
horses at a Club dinner, 250

Carew (Tom, of Collipriest) 84 ;
throws a pound of butter at a
member of the South Molton Club
for abusing Bp. Phillpotts, 257 ; a
Master of Staghounds, 277

Carew (Sir W.), 145, 210, 238, 246

Castle Hill : Staghunting Custom, 25

Chichester (Sir Arthur), 94 ; riding
down deer, 221 ; revives Staghunt-
ing, 276 ; narrow escape of, 299

Christ Church Drag (The), 50

Cholmondeley (Mrs.) Accident to, 308

Chulmleigh Club (The), 95, 128; six
IVLF.H.'s present at one dinner
of, 210

Church Bells sounded to signal
whereabouts of foxes, 117-119

Clarke (Rev. E.), 103, 142

Clarke (Erving) of Buckland-Tout-
Saints, 104, 145

Clarke (William), 104

Clergy: Number of hunting Parsons
in the Field, 201

Clinton's (Lord) Covers put at Rus-
sell's disposal, 143

Cockfighting a popular pastime, 315

Codrington (John), Master of the
Meynell School, 17, 50

Coham (George) of Coham, 142

Cole (Dr.), Rector of Exeter Col-
lege, Oxon, 15

Collyns (C. P.), 273; his exertions
revive Staghunting on Exmoor,
279 ; on Mr. Fenwick Bisset, 278

Cooke (Mr. E.) Undersecretary for
Ireland, 99

Index.

Cork (Lord), 30S

Cornish Welcome to Russell, 14S

Cory of Staddon, 127

Coryton (W.) of Pentillie, 131, 145

Cricket : Teigribridge Club, estab-
lished 1S24, 89 ; Russell plays in
the first match, 89

Cumming- (Jack), 265

Curates : Stories respectingf Russell
and his Curates, 230-235

' DAPHNE,' a hound of Russell's,
wonderful sag-acity oi, 130

Dauncey (Philip) of Little Horvvood,
Bucks, 47, 48, 49

Davies : Russell's Curate, anecdote
of, 234-6

Deacon (Henry) Master of H.H., 141

Deer : Wiles of, when hunted, 284-
288 ; driven to sea as a last re-
source, 301-303 ; buoyancy in the
water, 302

Delamore : A week at, 157

Denne of Lydd : Gentleman Com-
moner at Exeter Coll., 2S-29;
great football player at Eton, 30 ;
knocks down a prize figfhting
butcher, 31; challenges Gordon to
arrange a sparring match, selects
Russell, match in Denne's rooms,

32

Devonshire Hunter: Proper breed
for, 213

Dialect, local, used by Country Gen-
tlemen, 254 ; Stories in, 253-5

Digby (Mr. ) of Sherborne Castle, 107

Distances ridden to Meets, 159

Dougan (Peter) an Irish packman,
169; asks to ride over a five-barred
gate with his hands tied behind
him and his face to the horse's tail,
170 ; brings blue bird's-eye hand-
kerchiefs for Russell's special use,
171

Drake (Mr. Hammett), 91

Duntze (Sir John), 221

EASTCOTTSof Broadwoodwidger

and Norton, 127
Ebrington (Lord), 27 ; Master of

Staghounds, 277

Ellis (Col.), 321

Evans (Capt.), 49

Exford Farmer's letter to Russell,

240
Exmoor Bog (An), a Barrister in,

281
Extent of Russell's Country, 143-4

FELLOWES (Mr. Harry), sends
Russell draft of Hounds, 199

Fellowes (Newton), 103, 113, 114,
116, 127, 210,213; on the proper
breed for a DeNonshTre Hunter,
213; Master of Staghounds, 276

Fitzhardinge (Earl), 57

Fortescue (Lord), Master of Stag-
hounds 1812-18, 25, 27 ; presents
Testimonial to Russell, 338

Fortescue (Col.), 143

Fortescue (John Dicker), 211

Fox, a gallant, 241-244

Fox and Hounds engulfed in an
old Mine, 184

Foxes, Stories of taking their prey
whilst being pursued, 257-262

Fox-earths, Russell's secret plan
for, 245

Foxes: Curious system of keeping
a supply at Stover, 91

Fox-hunting Dinner : Hunting celeb-
rities present at, 209

Fox-killing Magnate, 239

Fox-preserving farmers, 127

French (Tom), Notorious Wilpicide,
38 ; his Dartmoor Terriers, 54

Froude (Rev. J.) of Knowstone :
Sells Russell a horse, 14, 79, 80 ;
character of his hounds, 80 ; his
character as a sportsman, 81 ;
complaints of to the Bishop, sum-
moned to appear at the Palace,
81 ; Bp. Phillpotts' visit to, 82-87 ?
his intiuence on Russell, 87, 206

GANDY (Charles), 104

George Nympton : Russell's first

Curacy at, 70
Gilbert (Rev. Pomeroy) of Bodmin

Priory, 142, 1S3, 185
Gilbert (Col. Sir W. Raleigh), 150,

151. 185

Ifidex.

Gipsies: Russell's kindness to, 192;
they respect the property of their
benefactors, 192 ; appreciate Rus-
sell's kindness, 193 ; King- of,
leaves a charm to Russell, 195; a
Gipsy prophecies her own death,
196

Glanville (F.), 145

Glanville (J.), 131, 145

Glubb (Rev. Peter), 115, 116, 127

Goodall (Frank), Queen's Hunts-
man, visits Tordown, 310

Goodall (Stephen), 16, 48, 50

Goodricke (Sir Henry), 30

Gordon, a Gentleman Commoner at
Exeter Coll., 30; vaunts the
prowess of Christ Ch. men in the
art of sparring-, challenged by
Denne to arrange a meeting, 31

Gorham Trial, 207

Gould (Baring), 143

' Gray,' Devonshire name for
Badger, 59

Gurney (W.) of Bratton Clovelly, 145

HARDING of Upcot, 226
Harris (C. Arthur) of Hayne, 30, 91 ;
joins Russell in the Maintenance
of his Hounds, 129 ; rendezvous
with Russell, 131 ; constructs arti-
ficial earths, 136 ; co-operation of,
141 ; on 'Rosabel' clears a couple
of bullocks, 150 ; on ' Skylark '
clears the centre arch of Tinhay
bridge, 151 ; covers, road-riding-
alone, 115 miles, besides the run,

145. i47> '59) i_83
Heard: A whitesmith of Beaford, 122
Hext (Tom), 183 ; has Russell's

pack, 198
Heythrop Hounds (The), 41
Hole (Mr.), of Georgeham, 91
Hooker (Richard, the Divine),

Journey on foot between Oxford

and Exeter, 65
Horndon (Mrs.) An Intrepid Rider,

244
Houlditch (Mr.), Serves Russell as

whip, 229
Hughes (Ball) of the 7th Hussars, 30
Hunter, a Monitor at Blundell's, 7

IDDESLEIGH : Legitimate fox-
hunting ignored by the natives
of, 1 1 6

Ilbert (Rev. Roope), Anecdote of, 254

Injuries to a Hound named ' Fal-
coner,' 300

Irish Oatmeal as food for hounds, 228

JACKSON (Peter) rides with Rus-
sell to the Heythrop Meet, 41

James (Reginald), owner of 'Stun-
ning Joe,' 249

Jekyll (Rev. Joseph) of Hawkridge,
240; his Lines on Carry Ourry, 241

Jersey (Lord), 49

Jewell (Bp. ) and Richard Hooker, 65

KARSLAKE (Rev. W. H.)ofDol-

ton, 114
Kennells (Russell's) at Iddesleigh,

Hayne, Bodmin, Pencarrow, 144
King- (John), of Fowelscombe, 92,

no, 211 ; his story of a Fo.x, 260
King-sley (Charles), Description of

a Stag at bay, i^,

LADIES attending Staghunt, 307
Landon (Dean) appoints Russell to

Swynibridge and Landkey, 190
Landue Pack started, under Mr.

Tom Phillipps, 177
Leach (George), 103, 209
Limpetty the huntsman, 242 ; feats

on 'Jack Sheppard,' 264
Lindo (Mr.) and his horse 'Clipper,'

43
Llewelyn (J. Dillwyn), 274
Long (Will) Whip to the Duke of

Beaufort 16, 45-47, 48, 49; on

Russell's power of distinguishing

Hounds, 216
Louis (Capt. M.), 145, 147
Lucas (Stucley) of Barrons Down,

27. 294
Luttrell (Rev. A. F.) of Quantocks-

head, 292
Luxmore (Mr.), 143
Luxton (Mr. G.), 276
'Memory,' a hound of Russell's, 183
'Milliner,' a hound after Russell's

heart, 221

Index.

MoUand Down, 79

Mole.sworth (Sir W.), Trustees of,
gfive Russell permission to draw
theTetcott and Pencarrow covers,
143 ; invites large party to meet
Phillipps and the Landue hounds,
182

Moore-Stevens of Cross, 145

Morris (Mr.), of Fishleigh, 118

Morris (Col.) of the ' Light Brigade,'
Monument on Hatherleigh Moor,
118 ; anecdote of, as a lad, 134

Mostyn (Sir T.), 16, 48

Musters (Mr.), 219

NAMES OF HOUNDS, Anecdotes

concerning, 217
Newton (Mr.) of Bridestowe, 188
Northumberland (Duke of), his

Covers at Werrington, 143
*Nunky,' Taylor's famous Horse,

96-98

OLDAKER (Harry, hn7itsmati), 144

Origin of the phrase ' The Bishop
has put his foot into it,' 67

Otterhounds : Russell starts a pack
at South Molton, 71 : Difficulty of
Training, 78; the keeping of, good
training for staghunting, 287

Ourry (Carry), A Cornish Beauty, 240

PALMER (Oliver) of Tinhay, 127

Parker (Adnil.), 157

Payne (Philip), Huntsman to the
Duke of Beaufort, 16, 47, 50

Pearson (Mr., A.R.A.), 191

Pelham (Bp. of Exeter) ordains
Russell, 64

Pennell - Elmhirst (Mr.), Russell
visits, 339

Petitions by farmers to arrange
meets so as not to interfere with
the Tavnstock Market, 149

Peyton (Sir Henry), 43, 49

Phillipps (Mr. Tom), 177 ; takes
over the Tetcott and Broadbury
districts, 1 76; gives up the latter, 1 81

Phillpotts (Bp., Henry of Exeter)
struck with Russell's eloquence,
3 ; visit to Rev. J. Froude, of

Knowstone, 82-87 ; on the advan-
tage of a Railway between London
and Exeter, 64; preaches a Charity
-Sermon, 67 ; anecdote of, 201 ;
remonstrates with Russell, 201 ;
hears a charge against him, 203 ;
anecdote of the Bishop and a
Churchwarden, 207
Plympton Grammar School, 4
Polkinhorne, Cornish Wrestler, 36
Poltimore (Lord), Starts his pack,
26S ; his estimate of Russell, 269 ;
offers Russell the living of Black
Torrington, 337
Portsmouth (Earl), Quality of his
pack, 267 ; Russell's estimate of,
as a sportsman, 268
Porlock : Russell's visit to in 1830, 1S5
Prettyjohn (Capt.), Anecdote of, 255
Prizefighting in Fashion, 35

RADCLIFFE, author of ' The Ivy-
bridge Hunt Song,' his Stories of
Cornish Squireen, 251

Rawle (Will) Russell's huntsman for
fort}' years, 51, 223, 224; his
secret plan for fox earths, 245

Rawlinson of Chadlington, owner of
'Coronation,' Derby winner, 43

Reynolds (Jemmy) Kennel man, 153

Richards (Dr.) Headmaster of Blun-
dell's, Tiverton, 6, 8 ; flogs Rus-
sell, 10 ; hears of his keeping
hounds, 13, 336

Rogers (Sir J.), 209

Rolle (Hon. Mark), 157, 268

Rookes : Horse-dealer at Tiverton
Fair, 20

Rowlands the Pugilist, 28

Russell (Rev. John, senior) takes
pupils at Dartmouth, 2 ; removes
to South-hill Rectory near Cal-
lington, 2 ; said to have pur-
chased ' Katerfelto,' 127, 209

Russell (Rev. John) born, i

Fights with Bulteel at school, 6
Keeps ferrets at school, 8
Kills Hunter's rabbits, 8
Starts keeping hounds, 1 1
Has the support ot the farmers, 12
Gains an Exhibition of ;^30, 14

Index.

Russell (Rev. John)

Buys a horse with it, 14
Admitted a Commoner at Exeter

College, 15
Buys a horse at Tiverton Fair, 20
Thrown from his horse, 22
First run with the Stag-hounds, 21
Stag- takes soil under Slade

Bridge, 22,
Enters water to capture Stag, 24
Blooded at the Staghunt, 24
His power of story telling, 27-40
Takes lessons in boxing, 29
Selected b}- Denne for a Sparring-

Match, 2i-
Rides a hundred miles to see a

wrestling match, 36
Rides to the Hevthrop meet, 41
His treatment of hounds that riot, 5 1
Secures 'Trump' the terrier, 53
Takes his degree, 63
Ordained Deacon and Priest, 64
Attention to Ministerial Duties, 66
Preaches at Barnstaple in aid of

the Blue Coat School, 67
Appointed Curate, 64, 70
Required to take double duty, 71
Starts a pack of Otter hounds, 72
Purchases the hound ' Racer,' 76
InfluenceofRev. J. Froudeupon,87
Hunts with Fronde's pack, 88
Attends first meeting of Teign-

bridge Cricket Club, 89
With Harris, forms the Tetcott

and Pencarrow pack, 92
Enjoys hunting all year round, 96
Falls in love, 105
Picks up the hare in front of the

hounds, 107
Rides to Bath, loS
The Warminster hack, 109-112
Retires from the charge of the

George Nympton and S. Molton

Parishes, 112
Keeps fox hounds, 114
Influence over farmers and cover

owners, 123
Unites pack with C. A. Harris, 129
Rendezvous with Harris, 131
Birth and death of his first-born

son, 133

Russell (Rev. John)

Result of sport during 1S28, 136
Handles his hounds as no one

else in Devon could, 147
Receives a Cornish welcome, 148
A fortnight in Cornwall, effect on

the neighbourhood, 148
Finds and kills three foxes in

Deviock wood, 149
His powers of endurance, 153,

Remarkable week's work in his

79th year, 157
Keeps no whip, 161
His powers as a huntsman, 167
His stud, 16S
His horse ' Bilh',' 172
His hound 'Memory,' 183
Goes down a mine after a fox, 184
Visit to Porlock, 185
Mr. Tamlyn forbids hunting over

his property, 1S6
Finds four cubs, sends them to

Iddesleigh, 187
Removes to Tordown, Swym-

bridge, 189-190
His kindness to the Gipsies, 193
Becomes surety for a Gipsy, 194
Buries the Gipsy King, 195
Parts with his pack to Mr. Hext,i98
Remonstrated with by Bp. Phill-

potts, 201
Charged with refusing to bury a

child, 202
His hounds, Trelawny's opinion

of, 208
His moderation after dinner, 211
Ability of distinguishing hounds,

215
Loved by his hounds, 220
Catches a fawn, 222
Operates on hounds, 224
Stories respecting his Curates,

230-235
With others forms the S. Molton

Club, 238
His secret plan with foxearths,245
Declines to play cards, 250
His fondness for a hunting song, 250
Some of his stories, 253-4
Is thrown into the Baric, 259

Index.

Russell (Rev. John)

Lord Poltimore's estimate of, 26S
His example gives impetus to fox-
hunting-, 270
Parts with his last pack, 271
A master in woodcraft, 271
His love of Staghunting-, 272
Attends the meets for 62 years, 273
Accounts of Staghunting, 277-290
Reserves three bitches at the dis-
posal of the original pack of
Staghounds, 274
Helps a barrister from an Exmoor

bog, 2S2
Letter concerning, in 83rd year,

292
At the Dunster Tenants ball, 293
Letter concerning him by S.

Lucas, 294
Rescues a man from stag, 298
Doctors an injured hound, 300
Kindness to young people and
ladies in the hunting field, 305-7
Upon wheels, an unusual sight, 31 1
Holds aloof from cock fighting

and horse racing, 316
Acts as judge of hounds, 316
Invited to meet the Prince of

Wales at De\onport, 31S
At Marham Hall, 319
Invited to Sandringham, 320
Second visit to Sandringham, 321
Dances in the New Year with the

Princess, 324
Anecdotes of his stay at Sand-
ringham, 321-327
Preaches before their Royal

Highnesses, 327
Letter from the Prince of Wales
on the death of Mrs. Russell, 328
\'isits Sandringham again, 2,J,Z
Another visit to Sandringham, 342
Made Honorary Governor of N.

Devon Hospital, 330
Chaplain to Sheriff of Corn wall, 330
Thrown from his horse, 331
His epigrammatic style of con-
versation, 2>:i2,
Recollections Blundell's School. 336
Is offered the Living of Black
Torrington, 337

Russell (Rev. John)

Testimonial on leaving Swym-
bridge, 33S

Invited to meet the Prince of
Wales at Dunster, 339

At the meet of the Ouorn, 339

Visits Bath, 340

At Ascot, 341

Taken ill, 343

Death and Funeral, 345
Russell (Mrs.), 148; interposes on

behalf of the hounds, 200 ; leads

the Field, 244 ; Death of, 328

SAINT HUBERT'S HALL, 198

Sam, Russell's Jack of all work, 164

Sanger (John), eccentric yeoman, 1 13

Savile of Oaklands, 143

Seccombe of Seccombe, 127

Seymour (A. E.), \"icar of Barn-
staple, 66

Sleeman, Russell's curate, license
revoked for hunting, 204

Sleeman, round robin in his favour, 205

Smale of Thorn, 127

Smith (Assheton) possessed a fas-
cination over hounds, 209

Smith (Squeaker), on the Christ
Church drag, 52

Smith (Mrs.) of the 'Ship,' Porlock,
and Squire Tamlyn, 86

South Molton : Russell settles there
in, 71

South Molton Club formed, 237 ; the
Club's first fixture, 242 ; flourishes
under Russell, 245 ; Members and
Supporters of, 248 ; Horse Auc-
tions at, 249 ; sociality of the
Meetings, 256, 262

Sparring Match in Denne's rooms, 33

Sportsmen famous in Devon, loi

Square (Tom), hanged for sheep
stealing, 125

Staghounds: Masters of the, 273

Staghounds : The original pack
goes to Germany, 274

Stawell (Rev. W. B.), nominates
Russell to the Curacy of George
Nympton, 64

Stover pack of dwarf fox hounds, 90

Swymbridge, 190, 338

Index.

Sykes (Sir Tatton), accomplishment
of long road distances, 153; knocks
down a prize figfhter, 155

TANTON (Peter), Staunch fox pre-
server, 127
Tarr Steps on the Barle, 241
Taylor (Rev. H.) of West Og-vvell,

90. 93. 95' 100

Temple (Rev. Dr.), 336

Templer (Georg-e) of Stover, 26, 88,
90 ; his hospitality, 92 ; power over
fox hounds, 93 ; system of saving
his bag foxes alive 94, 107, 186,
209, 210, 317

Templer (Rev. John), 90, 104

Templer (John Lyne), 104

Terriers : Russell's famous, breed,

53:57 . .

Testimonial to Russell on leaving
Swymbridge, 338

Tetcott and Pencarrow pack, 92

Tetcott and Broadbury Districts :
break-up of the hunting arrange-
ments, 176; covers wrested from
Russell and handed over to Mr.
Tom Phillipps, 177; meet at Grib-
bleford Bridge, 177; Phillippsgives
up the Broadbury country, 181

Theobald (Mr.), 276

Thomson (Col. J. Anstruther) enter-
tains Russell in his 86th year for
the Ascot Week, 341

Tickel of Bratton Clovelly, 127

'Tickler,' Mrs. Russell's favourite
horse, 243

Tinhaj- Bridge : Harris clears the
centre arch on 'Skylark,' 151

'Tip,' one of Russell's terriers, 59

Tiverton Fair, 19

Tordown : Russell removes to, 189

Tout (James), Huntsman to the
Staghounds, 23-25

Treby (Paul Ourry) of Goodamoor,
102; his plan for artificial earths,

137. I45> 146
Trelawny of Coldrenick, 238
Trelawny (Sir W. S.), 92, 102; his

hound ' Whirligig,' 103
Trelawny (Charles), 183
Tremayne of Sydenham, 143

Trciyte (Dr.), of Huntsham, 218
Twysden (Henry, R. N.), 104

VEALE (Mr.), of Passaford, 118 '
Villebois (H.), of Marham Hall, in-
vites Russell to meet H.R.H. the
Prince of Wales, 319

WADLAND: Farmer of Dolton, 122

Wales (H.R.H. The Prince of), 318-
319; invites Russell to Sandring-
hani, 320-321 ; writes Russell on
the death of Mrs. Russell, 329 ;
unable to visit Dunster, 334; visits
Dunsten, 339 ; presents Russell
with scarf pin at Sandringham, 342

Wales (H.R.H. The Princess of),
2,22ii 3241 3-7> 328, 342

Wallas (Rev. Mr.), Vicar of Barn-
staple, 66

Walton (Izaak), Anecdote of Jewell
and Hooker, 65

W^arren (S. H.), Hon. Sec. to the
Devon and Somerset Hunt, 277

Webber (Tom), well known Stag-
hunter, 285

West (Capt.), 277

' Whirligig,' Trelawny's famous
hound, 103

White (Jack), Horsedealer upbraids
Mr. Woolcombe, 181

Whyte of Pilton, 145

Wingfield (Tom), 16, 49

Woolcombe (John Morth), of h.s\i-
bury. 75' 127, 130, 143, 145, 146,

178 ; wishes to bu}- Russell's pack,

179 ; destroys foxes on his estates,
I So; indignation of the hunting
community, 181

Worth (Mr.), of Worth, 91
Wrestling: Cann andPc->lkinhorne,36
Wrestling : Announced at Church-
yard gate on Sunday, 37
Wrey (H. Bourchier), 145, 147

YEATMAN (Rev. H. Farr), of Stock

House, Dorset, 91, 107, 185,317
Yelland (Jack), the whip, 59

ZEAL (John), enthusiastic fox-
hunter, 314

Exeter : \V. J. Southwood & Co.

Wi/h 2^ illustrations crown 4to, handsomely bound, suitable for the
library or /or presentation, /6/- nett.

«

STAGmWTlNG

5^ WITH THE "^

DEVO/i-°SO/\ERSET

1&87 - 1^ Ol

AN ACCOViHT OP
THE CHASE OF TilE

WILD RED DEER

PfilUP EVERED.

1 LLV5TR ATED BY H . M . I^OAViS

CAiATTO ^.WIT^DVS
LOA< DO/N.

EXETER

^*^ .9oa "^^

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON

ikB.., . *;

"Staghunting with the Devon and Somerset."

The Times:

Since Blackmore wrote " Lorna Doone," we
have read nothing- which gives a more vivid idea
of the picturesque romance and sullen desolation
of the wildest tracts in Southern England. Mr.
Evered, though profoundly versed in venery
and moorcraft, is something more than a zealous
sportsman. He knows every rood of the ground
and there could be no better guide to its beautie.5
or to its innumerable perils and man-traps. Ha
has a soul for scenery whether soft or sublime,
lie makes even the quag^mires with their rank
g-rowth and the stone strewn "g^raveyard " attrac-
tive, and the charms of the wooded combes
with the brawling brooks must be tempting alike
to the tourist and artist. The volume is profusely
illustrated with photographs of scenery, farm-
houses, hounds, hunters and country folk and
they are triumphs of the skilful use of the
camera.

The Spectator :

Mr. Evered knows the country and the
method of procedure thoroughly. His style is
more ag^reeable than the common run of sporting
writers, and he is imbued with a love of Exmoor,
and a delight in the indescribable pleasures of
the chase.

The Literary World :

.'> With Mr. Evered for a guide we accompanj-

the "harbourer," we share in the "tufting," we
attend the brilliant meet at Cloutsham, we see
the stag up and away with a bound, we hear
the music of the pack, and admire the noble
brute at bay.

The Guardian:

His account is instinct with the life and reality and eager force that only come to a
writer who is dealing with a subject with which he is thoroughly familiar and which he
really loves. The illustrations are numerous enabling the reader to realize the beauty and
wildness of the haunts which the lordly red deer love.

The iVIorning Post :

Will be read with pleasure by all who have followed the famous pack of which it tells, and
to the inexperienced it furnishes a complete guide and handbook.

The Pall Mall Gazette:

The numerous photographs are remarkable for their subject matter, they include more
than one representation of a live and hunted deer.

St. James Gazette :

Mr. Evered writes not merely as one who rides to hounds, he is an observer of nature . . .
he deals with the subject altogether in a picturesque way and his book comprises many
interesting records of the famous Somerset Hunt.

The World :

Those who hold with that eccentric sportsman James Pigg that "there's nout like
fox hunting " are rather apt to look with slig^ht favour on the pursuit of wild red deer as being
"slow" and lacking- the excitement of jumping. They would probably be inclined to
modify their views on the subject after reading Mr. Evered's delightful book on Staghtmting
Txith the Devon atid Somerset. It is a book that will give pleasure not only to those who
love the chase, but to all who appreciate spirited accounts of wild sport amid wild

surroundings it is scarcely too much to say that there is not from cover to cover a

dull page in his book nor one that will not repay perusal. With a rare talent for picturesque
description Mr. Evered tells of the varying incidents of the chase, touches in with an
appreciative pen the local colouring that lends so much of its charm to the sport and the
scenes portrayed among the wooded combes and wild woodland of Devon come vividly
before the mind of the reader.

Westminster Gazette:

Mr. Evened has done his part of the work in a way that will be keenly enjoyed and
appreciated by all who have been out with the Devon and Somerset, and he has the
exceptional advantajje of having- secured as illustrations a very remarkable series of
photog-raphs by Mr. H. M. Lomas.

The Outlook :

The book generally is a capital one and wll please all lovers of horse and hound,
the views of PZxmoor are almost works of art.

Some of

The Publisher's Circular :

With the aid of pen and camera he has produced a complete enthralling account of
staghunting as it exists to-day which must take a conspicuous place in the literature of
sport — and lovers of " Lorna Doone " will be grateful for the glimpses they obtain of
the regions made' famous by the g^enius of Blackmore — the illustrations are almost as much
a part of the book as the text — they are numerous and beautiful.

Somerset County Herald:

Such a well written and exquisitely got up work as this should be in the possession of everj'
follower of " the Devon and Somerset" as well as the great number of general readers who
take a keen interest in the chase of the wild red deer on Exmoor.

North Devon Journal:

A book that will be treasured as a brilliant and faithful picture of the most glorious sport
in England. Mr. Evered has given a picture of stag'hunting' that i-^ quite unique.

The Scotsman:

The present handsomely and plentifully illustrated work is a delightful and instructive

volume whether to look at or to read the Devon and Somerset staghounds hunt

a fairer country-side than any other in all England, and these pictures must awaken the
liveliest associations of health, good spirits and open air adventure in the mind of any
spectator who knows the look of the moor, the combes, the ferns, the cliffs and the foam
within sight of Dunkery Beacon. Mr. Evered describes the country with a rare and
catching heartiness in his appreciation. The literature of sport is sensibly the richer for
the book.

The End of a Good Run. — Minehead Cliffs.

On Haddon Hill.

©pinions of tbc pvcsB.

The Field :

The work is written by one who knows every yard of the moor, everybody about it,
and all the details of hunting', the book is at once a record and a handbook of the most interest-
ing kind The book is exceeding-ly well got up, the title page is artistic while the

printing reflects great credit on the firm of Southwood & Co., of Exeter, by whom it was
executed.

Illustrated Sporting^ and Dramatic News:

Mr. Evered has made use of his opportunities to observe the manner of the red-deer and the
methods of the men who follow the chase across the wild open moor when they can, down the
sultry wooded combes when they must, and he tells in bright and graphic language the story
of some of the best runs he has known.

The Sporting Life :

The reader is in the land of " Lorna Doone " and those who have been under the spell of that
enchanting romance will find many a feature in Mr. Evered's description of the spacious,
varied and majestic scenery he deals with, which recall Blackmore's pictorial touch. As a
contribution to a select library of standard works on that phase of the noble science which only
an enthusiastic follower of the wild red-deer from his lair to the death could have written the
volume disarms criticism. It is written with manifest authority.

The Ladies' Field :

Staghunting on Exmoor has been fortunate in its historians. Dr. Collyns" book is a classic,
Mr. John Fortescue's deserves to be, and Mr Philip Evered's volume on Staghunting on
Exmoor which we have just read with the greatest pleasure is fully worthy of such good
company .... to those who have been to Exmoor it is a treasury of delightful memories of
past pleasures — to those who mean to go there it will be an indispensable guide.

The County Gentleman :

He not only depicts the wild beauties of the Devon and Somerset country but the genuine
spirit of sport runs through every line he has written.

Country Li-fe :

It is well written, and a valuable guide to those who have never hunted with these hounds,
and a delightful recaller of happy memories to those who have — of the photographic illustra-
tions by Mr. Lomns a w-rd of high praise must be written. Not often have I seen more
artistic or faithful lanascape photography.

The Academy :

The wild red deer hunting of Somerset and Devon is a world of its own full of moor-craft
and wood-craft and local lore. . . . You need not be a follower of these hunts or have ever
seen an antler^ d deer pounding over Dunkery to enjoy these pages in which the breeze and
the heather and the warmth of rocks and the music of hounds are recalled.

The Athenaeum :

The get-up of the volume rellects great credit on
margins are ample.

all concerned, the type is good, the

Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at
Tufts University
200 Westboro Road
North Grafton, MA 01536

wnich are entitie< lo ineit sui^^.^,

CLERGYMEN WHO HUNT.

The recent death of tite- Rev. John
Dene, an enthusiastic North Devon
sportsman, who had some lively recollec-
tions of the famous " Parson " Jack Rus-
sell, is a reminder that the majority of
hunting countries still have their keen
sporting parsons. At present, however,
there is only one clerical M.F.H. This
is the Rev. Edgar JNIilne, who has hunted
the Cattistock country with great success
for many seasons. A bold rider and a fine
judge of hounds, there is no more popular
Master than ]\tr. JNIilno, who contrives
to remain on the best of terms with fol-
lowers and farmers alike.

Good stories 'told of hunting parsons
are without number. One is of a North
Country clergyman who was called upon
to perform a marriage ceremony on a
hunting morning. Just as the young
couple arrived the parson heard hounds
in full cry not far away. " Come again
to-morrow ! " he excitedly shouted to the
bewildered pair, and, jumping into the
saddle, was soon striking for a foreniost
place in the hunt.

" Parson " Russell's wonderful exploits
with hounds are still talked of in the
West Countiy. Even when he had
reached the veteran stage he rode extra-
ordinary distances to meet the hounds.
He led the field in a, fine run with the
Devon and Somerset pack when he was
within three months of his eighty-sixth
birthday !