SQUIRE OS'BALDESTON
AVERY entertaining autobiography, almost a hundred years old, has been appearing, week by week, in the Field. The writer was " Squire Osbaldeston," a famous sportsman of the early last century, whose own history of his life and exploits has only lately come to light. The recol- lections, skilfully annotated and explained by the Editor, are illustrated by many contemporary hunting scenes, which, by the courtesy of private collectors, the Field has been able to reproduce. Osbaldeston wrote down all that seemed to him worth recalling in his life to please the wife of his old age, and.though not what is usually meant by a human document in that it lacks intimacy, it gives a curiously vivid picture of a very_ limited mind and of the impression made upon that mind by fellow-sportsmen. It is life in the first decades of the nineteenth century as seen from horseback by a man who until his natural force abated took no interest in life from any other point of view, for whom the indoor world wherein all women and most men spend their working hours hardly ,existed. It -would not, of course, be true to say that women did not exist for Osbaldeston ; he gives a bald account, wholly unrelieved by sentiment or compunction, of an engage- ment which ended in his being jilted and of two other rather sordid affairs to which he looks back as matters of small importance among the greater sporting events of his youth. In politics he admits he could never get up any _ interest, and obviously he never read. Born in 1787, the heir to great estates in Yorkshire, Osbaldeston was educated at Eton and Oxford, and though he lived till within the memory of . many old men he belonged to an England which is completely of the past. He knew as a child old people of whoin his mother told him stories which to-day seem to 'refer to times at least as remote as those of Pepys-stories, for `_ instance, of a Peer who in a letter about an election declared that " he could not stoop to ask a favour of a plebeian," and of his lady, who always interviewed -her doctor through :her maid.
- Master- first-of the Quoin and then of the: Pytchley; his -name. was early known all Over the : sporting world. treevey gives the folloWing picture of him-:-" Osbaldeston himself, though only five feet high and .with" features-like a cub-fox, is a very funny little chap ; clever in his way, very good-humoured arid. gay and _ with very _good -manners:" - • His Editor tells us- that,: for his part, after studying the various portraits he feels that Creevey has caricatured his hero. " I seem - to see_ a compact little .figure about 5 ft. 6 -in. and .10 st. 7 lb.-, often dressed like a jockey," not, foxy-faced at all, but "combining -the benign aspect of a great sportsMan with the coun- -tenance and expreSsion -of a iuralde.an." Creevey's con- ception fits in better with the autobiography. There was a great deal of the young animal about him; not in the gross but in the attractive sense. His good nature; his -devil-may-care attitude to' 'danger, and his power of endurance were wonderful. Already in early life he was -slightly lame and always wore one top-boot laced up on the outside. This was due to " a terrible compound fracture of his • leg caused when -Sir James Musgrave jumped on him in a run with the Quorn." He seemed 'hardly to feel pain, witness the following story "Just as Lord Macdonald started, a jay flew up and, to our surprise; he turned round and shot at-it, although it was in- a line.. with the beaters and myself. He shot through the top of the keeper's hat, fortunately without hurting the man, and one pellet hit me just in the beginning of the ball of my. eye. I did not make any observation because our shooting would- so soon be over, and if I had spoken it would have put an end at once to the day's sport. I was nearly blind of it only half an hour afterwards."
The doctor, for whom he sent on getting back to the house, feared that the injury might destroy. the sight. Undoubtedly he was all his life abnormally " hard," for we hear that up till nearly seventy " he could play billiards for three whole nights, and go to races every day." There is no evidence in these pages that the Squire had any great sense of humour, but he took a cheerful pleasure, in " fun and larking," and relates with gusto stories to make a schoolboy dream. Here is a story of " a match -Lord Middleton made. He had some discussion with a gentleman who was staying with him about the skill of his gamekeeper, and it was agreed that his Lordship and the-keeper should shoot a match, one of the conditions being that each should carry what the other shot. The man was a very good shot, and after a time Lord Middle- ton, very tired with the .load he had to carry, felt that' he must be beaten, as the keeper had .not such a weight on his back. So he- remenibered the terms of the match and deliberately shot a young donkey, which he insisted the, keeper must carry. I was not present and do not know how they settled it, but I suppose the decision would. depend on the wording of the Articles.' If each shooter was to carry ' everything I his opponent killed, Lord Middleton might claim the match." The roughness of life about the time of the Reform Bilf strikes , one continually. The Leiceitershire factoryi hands seem to have cherished a spite against the great Hunts, and thought nothing of attacking men4 horses and hounds. Terrible fights took place, and the Squire tells how he thanked God the whip in his hand' was n light-one with which -he struck a stocking-spinner over the head. The man rushed out of a public-house with various companions, kicked several hounds ahnos to death, and terribly injured a horse ! Such doings seemed to cause no stir' beyond rousing the righteous fury of those Who witnessed the brutality. The cropping of !kirks' ears strikes us nowadays as 'a singularly barbarous praCtiee. _OsbaldestOn relates a story of .I4ord Winterton; who, according to him, honestly believed that certain horsea were foaled without the 1.
—an early instance of the 'refusal to face, the questionanimal suffering ! The sporting anecdotes show plaiiy that the Squire, 'despite his great reputation, did riiit find it easy to keep the Field in order. We hear how' he called off hounds on several oceadions. because his 6 orders had 61 'was But his anger never lasted long, and _he -Wa's undeniably an accomplished hand at receiving an aPology, and makei haste to speak well of every man who apologises, even for bad acts of in- subordination.
The most 'valuable of Osbaldeston's letters are written to his steward. " To ScOtt he laid bare his soul," says his Editor. This, however, is a Method of speech. His soul is kept well under cover at all times ; ene must althost doubt, its existence. He does, hoWever, tell Scott his money anxieties, the sad distruit that he is beginning to feel in his own luck, .and his desire to share with his dependents any money he may win on horse- racing or find in' the shape of coal On his estates. He is a boy in heart—afraid he is going to get into tionble, and solacing hiMself with the hope of a sudden -Change of fortune_ and of how he will give away his sweets. In 1834,. when he was forty-seven, he resigned the mastership of the Pytchley and hold his famous pack. In 1839 he tried to resume the mastership of the Quorn without success, and_ after that " the Turf was the chief field of his exploits." He lost an immense . deal of money.. A fainiliar figure at nearly every big race. Meeting, " he frequently dOnned silk to ride his.ou-n horses." He lives; he tells Scott, in constant' dread that his horses should be tampered with; and his suspicions were reasonable enough, considering that in those days " racing with carried on in a miasma of knaVery." The details of his financial downfall we do not exactly know. The principle which was his ruin - he, however, enunciates to Scott " We will not stand Still for want of money, as I can always borrow." When things looked very bad indeed he did the most sensible act of his life—he married kind and strong-minded widow. Out of the sale of his estates £20,000 remained after his debts were paid. His wife took him to live in a little house in Alpha Road, St. John's Wood, and there she kept him amused. " Every evening' after the seven- o'clock dinner she would bring out the bag and present the old Squire with one sovereign.
Furnished thus with funds, he would take a cab, always the same, and be driven to the Portland Club, there to indulge his ruling passion on a reduced scale ; and at the club he would remain making matches at billiards and laying small bets as long as he had a shilling with which tO•back his opinion.' He .never*brought anything home." A sad ending for the " little chap " with the game leg, " the 'features of a- cub-fox," the Pluck of a bloodhound, and an inexhanstible fund' of anecdote and of good temper.
Previous page
