Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/275

 THE SALISBURY LINE 239

seventy-eighth year, clad in sky-blue habit with black velvet collar and cuffs and a jockey cap, the uniform of the hunt. Many tales are told of her exploits in the field. Thus, in the Sporting Magazine for March, 1795, there is an account of her triumphs in a great run of two hours and a half. " Out of a field of four score," says her enthusiastic chronicler, " her ladyship soon gave honest Daniel the go-by ; pressed Mr. Hale neck and neck, soon bio wed the whipper-in ; and continued, indeed, throughout the whole of the chase, to be nearest the brush." 1

In her last years she is said to have been tied into the saddle, and when she became too blind to see the fences, a groom would lead her horse, and at the critical moment would shout, " Damn you, my lady, jump ! " 2 Even when she was obliged to give up following foxhounds, she said she thought she was good enough to hunt with the harriers. 3

She was game to the end. In 1833, two years before her death, she is reported as " more youthful than ever," and as about to go to the Berkhamsted Ball, " which she attends annually." 4 An amusing story is told of her in the following year by the Duchesse de Dino 5 :

" Last Sunday she was at church, a rare thing with her, and the preacher, speaking of the Fall, observed that

1 Quoted by the Duke of Beaufort, in Hunting, p. 15.

2 Antrobus, Hatfield, p. 96.

8 See Victoria County History, Hertfordshire, I. 349.

4 Lady Louisa Molyneux to Creevey, October soth, 1833.

8 Memoirs, May ist, 1834.

�� �