In the early stages of his blindness, Fawcett’s purse did not permit him to ride much. Moreover, some narrow escapes from accident—he was at one time nearly crushed at Salisbury by a cart—made him for a short time hesitate as to its expediency. But later he took it up with enthusiasm, at first accompanied by a riding master, and later by groups of friends. One of these tells how he would often ride over to Newmarket to spend Sunday. During the Sabbath he would nearly walk his friend off his legs, and on other days contented himself with walking his horse off its legs. With a box of sandwiches provided for luncheon, Fawcett would ride over from Cambridge at Christmas time to feast on the sunny side of the Devil’s Ditch. He loved the chalk downs, and often stopped at a cottage to ask for a draught of the sparkling, deep-well water. He enjoyed, too, gossiping with the shepherds about the flocks, for his early interest in agricultural matters was through life a marked characteristic. Once he came across the harriers, and joined in their gallops, trusting entirely to the prudence of his horse to select the most favourable gaps in the hedgerows. A frequent companion on these rides tells how one day, going at a brisk pace, she was so interested in something he was telling her that she did not see until within a few feet of it that they were at the edge of a precipitous gravel pit. Fearing to alarm Fawcett she simply called out, ’stop at once, please.’ Fawcett, always quick to act, pulled up short, and but for his prompt response to her call would certainly have been killed. Fawcett was so reckless and enthusiastic an equestrian that it is still a well-remembered tradition in the livery-stables at Cambridge that Professor Fawcett took so much vitality out of his mounts that he was always charged extra. It must not be gathered that he was inhuman to his horses—they probably had just as good a time, relatively, as he had, but whatever he did, he did in a whole-souled and muscular fashion. [Sidenote: Fishing.] But for Fawcett, who had been trained from childhood as a fisherman, the crowning joy of all sports was a good fishing expedition. Very soon after the accident, he took up his fishing again. He remembered his native stream well, and to the end of his life he was always eager to run down to Salisbury to fish. His letters to his father abound in reference to angling parties, past and to come. He gave directions about his fishing-boots (they were so frequently in use that they must have had a simple number in his catalogue of clothes) and instructions to secure some expert angler to accompany him, or framed some subtle tactics for way-laying and ensnaring some particularly elusive aquatic prey, who had perhaps been known to his neighbours but had remained uncaught by them. [Sidenote: Trout and Political Economy.]