The Coot was well known in Leicestershire in his day. Visiting the patients in the Leicester Infirmary one day, a poor fellow, who lay very ill in his bed, called to me, “Squire, Squire,” as I was leaving the ward. Going to his bedside, I found that he wanted to enquire after the health and well-being of the Coot.
One morning, when staying at Lamport Hall, I went to meet the Quorn at Keythorpe Hall, and as I came near, Charles Leslie (then M.P. for Monaghan) came galloping forward to meet me with a message from Sir Richard Sutton. It appeared that at a large party which had taken place overnight at Quorndon Hall there had been much talk about various riders, and Sir Richard had declared that if I were out I should beat the whole field. Leslie had sent his best horse, Marmion, for me to ride; but I preferred my own, and did not regret it.
It was as well that hounds were able to run that day, for there was some pretty hard riding. They found in Ram’s Head Gorse, and ran fast, over a very strongly-fenced country, to Stockerston Wood. I led during the whole run, jumping gates and whatever else came in the way; and when hounds entered the wood the only other man in the field was Little Gilmour. Lord Cardigan was close up with him: he had put his thumb out of joint in a bad fall, and had to go home.
In talking over the riders he knew with Lord Cardigan, he paid Lord Wilton what I thought a great compliment, saying he thought nothing of his riding, “for he would jump through the bars of a gate.” It seemed to me to prove the ease with which he crossed country, and certainly few men were often as near hounds as Lord Wilton in a good run.
Sir Richard Sutton was always very kind to me. I well remember his gratification when I justified his good predictions that I should cut down the field. But on another day I had the misfortune to get into his bad books. He was going to draw Norton Gorse, and on the way we had to pass through Ilston Spinney. Having had a hint from a farmer, I made haste to get through the spinney, and when half-way heard a view halloo. Away went the fox and away went the hounds on a blazing scent—no master, no servants, and a hard riding field on the top of the pack, with nobody to keep them in hand. It was a regular scurry, and many of them got falls, among them Lord Wilton. At last hounds checked, and the Baronet came up. We had unduly pressed hounds, and nobody had a word to say when he spoke his mind about it. We all caught it in a strain we remembered, though Sir Richard never allowed an abusive word to pass his lips. Egged on by others, I begged him to let us off, promising to help kill the fox, for I had seen him in the Norton Brook while I was in the air. Hounds were got on to the line, and, settling to it, soon killed him.
“Now,” said Sir Richard, “I will serve you all out; I’ll find my next fox in Charnwood Forest.”
There was general dismay at this announcement, for Charnwood Forest was fourteen miles off. Lord Gardner, recovering the shock first, came up to me.
“You must stop this!” he said. “Go and apologise for us.” I declined, feeling and saying that I was no better than the worst among the offenders; but on Lord Gardner’s urging that “there was nobody else he would listen to,” I gave way, and Sir Richard, like the really good, kind-hearted master he was, let us off, and found another fox close by.
There were two lively young members of the Quorn who habitually pressed hounds, Colonel Forrester and Bromley Davenport, whose shortness of sight may perhaps be pleaded in extenuation. On arriving at the meet in his chariot, as the vehicle was called in the ’forties, Sir Richard enquired of his first whipper-in whether these gentlemen were out. He was told they were, and forthwith the whipper-in was ordered to draw some of the best hounds, which were put into the carriage and sent home!
Sir Richard Sutton had a strong sense of the duty of a master and the right way to discharge it. On one occasion he killed his fox in the shrubbery of a clergyman. The place was very nicely kept, and the hunt servants having made, as was rather unavoidable, rather a mess of the paths, &c., the owner wrote to complain. Sir Richard, instead of going to the meet with a pair of horses next morning, ordered out four, and went a good deal out of his way to call and apologise; to offer payment also. The clergyman, a very gentlemanly man, repented the tenor of his complaint, and Sir Richard’s anxiety to put matters right quite disarmed him. He apologised for having written, would not hear of accepting compensation, and expressed the hope that he might see hounds in his neighbourhood again soon! So much for civility.