Читать книгу Lord William Beresford, V.C., Some Memories of a Famous Sportsman, Soldier and Wit онлайн

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Trifles of this kind, however, never worried Lord William, for his spirits were unquenchable.

One of the fastest runs with hounds he could remember, in those days of scanty judgment, was when out with the Curraghmore hounds in the northern part of the country. The fences were not very big, but the pace was great. Lord William and Captain McCalmont were riding a bit jealous, I think; after racing for about twenty minutes, they both tried to fly a bank, with the natural result when jumping blown horses. Captain McCalmont’s gallant little mare did not get up for some time; she wisely lay still to recover her wind, but Lord William had been so struck by her performance that he shouted, “I will buy her”—and he did. But horses when asked to do too much, sometimes break their hearts, and the mare was never quite the same again.

Whenever sport was to be knocked out of anyone or anything Lord William was sure to be there. Nothing came amiss to him, fisticuffs, American cock-fighting, hunting, racing, polo, the latter only just becoming popular in England.