Related article: remained a remarkably temperate man. In order to preserve his sobriety, without giving offence to the rollicking members who as- sembled at the Melton hunt suppers, he secretly contrived to have a small tub placed at his feet under the table, and when he had drunk what he considered his proper allowance would quietly empty his glass into the tub, unnoticed by his more excited companions, who remained en- tirely ignorant of the device. But if the darling of the Quorn stood out from his contemporaries as being neither a hard-drinker nor gambler, yet like most Salopian squires, he was dearly fond of a I899-] Ci THE FLYING CH1LDE. i» 247 sporting wager, and it was a wager which caused him to accom- plish what was undoubtedly an exceptionally fine piece of endur- ance and horsemanship combined. Up till then an ancestor of his friend, Mr. John Corbet, of Sun- dorne, had been considered the pride of Shropshire where specu- lation might be concerned, having wagered, so it is said, eight thousand pounds that he possessed the handsomest calf of any gentle- man in the kingdom ; and there is a picture at Sundorne Castle de- picting this individual showing off his leg to the admiring circle of judges who have just proclaimed him the winner. Mr. Childe's bet, however, was of a very different character, since he wagered certain of his hunting friends that he would ride from London to Kinlet, a distance of some one hundred and seventy miles, in twelve hours. This chal- lenge caused considerable stir in the sporting world, and one fine spring morning in the early " eighties " — for the exact date of the exploit is lacking — the rider started from London shortly after four o'clock, and dismounted at Kinlet as the Hall clock was striking four that same afternoon. He galloped the whole way, hav- ing, of course, relays of fresh horses awaiting him on the road. Time did not permit of him paus- ing to take food or drink, but as an insurance against thirst he carried a cherrystone in his mouth, and this served its purpose so well that he reached his destina- tion without the slightest appear- ance of fatigue. The last stage of his journey was attended by a remarkable incident. On arriving at Bewdley, six miles from home, the rider found to his consterna- tion that the central arch of the bridge crossing the Severn at that point had given way, owing to Glucotrol Xl 5 Mg an exceptionally high flood, leaving a breach in the roadway of some feet in width. Nothing daunted, and having no time to waste, he turned his horse round and put him at it. The animal cleared the gap with a scramble, and thus secured to his plucky rider the wager which would otherwise have been lost at the eleventh hour owing to this most unfore- seen of accidents. Remembering the fuss that was made some few years ago about the Austro- Prussian long-distance military ride, it is interesting to recall this feat of endurance in man, if not in beast, as performed by an English country gentleman to- wards the close of the last cen- tury. Assuredly it is fully equal to anything accomplished by the Austrian and Prussian cavalry officers — in their international contest that took place in the autumn of 1892. It must not be supposed, how- ever, that when Mr. Childe retired from Leicestershire and perma- nently settled down at Kinlet he abjured the sport which had brought his name into such re- pute. In his own corner of Buy Glucotrol Xl the county he immediately established himself master of a new pack, which must have hunted over a very considerable portion of what is now the Ludlow country. Compared to the Leicestershire vales, the rough, undrained sur- face of the land around Bewdley presents the most complete con- trast possible to imagine, while to mention two of the formidable obstacles which it contains, there is the Titterstone Clee Hill, scat- tered all over with huge masses of granite, and the Wyre Forest, to take hounds into which is to expect never to see them again. Despite such drawbacks, hedging him on either side, Mr. Childe's new pack found plenty of sport, 248. BAILY S MAGAZINE. [April and it was their master who inaugurated the first efficacious method of hunting the Clee Hills, where there formerly existed any number of foxes, having their runs under the granite boulders. Seeing it was utterly impossible to stop these earths, the owner of Kinlet hit upon the expedient of having fires lit along the hills at the time Reynard is supposed to be abroad for food, in order to cut off his retreat at daybreak; and then in the morning, but at a much earlier hour than that at which the present generation of hunting men are accustomed to meet, some grand sport would ensue. And as the significance of these fires grew to be more fully realised, they became the signal for hundreds of the quarry- men and miners, working in the locality, to assemble and follow the hounds on foot ; in fact, the hunting of the Clee Hills eventu- ally assumed the proportions of a Shropshire carnival, and as such endured to a comparatively recent date. Neither did Mr. Childe forget his old Leicestershire friends ; many of these used to journey down to partake of his hospitality at Kinlet, and to put in a few days' sport over this very rough country ; while occa- sionally the host would take his guests over to Willey, where his neighbour, Squire Forester, kept Tom Moody's memory green by treating them all to a repetition of a favourite prank on the part of his old huntsman, namely, a run by moonlight. For nearly a quarter of a cen- tury did Mr. Childe pursue the useful and peaceful life of an English country gentleman, earn- ing, moreover, something wider than local renown as a skilful agriculturist, together with the esteem of all classes, as a good sportsman, a kind landlord, and