Mytton married, secondly, Miss Giffard, of Chillington, a match of such misery to the lady, that it ended in a separation. The crisis of the spendthrift's fate was now impending. All the effects at Halston were advertised for sale; and very shortly after Mr. Mytton fled to the Continent to escape from his creditors. "On the 15th of November, 1831," says Nimrod, "during my residence in the town of Calais, I was surprised by a violent knocking at my door, and so unlike what I had ever heard before in that quiet town, that being at hand, I was induced to open the door myself, when, to my no little astonishment, there stood John Mytton. 'In the name of Heaven,' said I, 'what has brought you to France?' 'Why,' he replied, '_just what brought yourself to France_'--parodying the old song--'three couple of bailiffs were hard at my brush.' But what did I see before me--the active, vigorous, well-shapen John Mytton, whom I had left some years back in Shropshire? Oh, no; compared with him, 'twas the reed shaken by the wind; there stood before me a round-shouldered, decrepit, tottering, _old-young_ man, if I may be allowed such a term, and so bloated by drink! But there was a worse sight than this--there was a mind as well as a body in ruins; the one had partaken of the injury done to the other; and it was at once apparent that the whole was a wreck. In fact, he was a melancholy spectacle of fallen man." It appeared that Mytton had been arrested for a paltry debt and thrown into prison. "I once more," writes Nimrod, "was pained by seeing my friend looking through the bars of a French prison-window. Here he was suffered to remain for fourteen days; on the thirteenth day, I thought it my duty to inform his mother of his situation, and in four days from the date of my letter she was in Calais. After a time Mytton returned to England, but only to a prison and a grave. The representative of one of the most ancient families of his country, at one time M.P. for Shrewsbury and High Sheriff for Shropshire and Merioneth, the inheritor of Halston and Mowddwy and almost countless acres, the most popular sportsman of England, died within the walls of the King's Bench Prison, at the age of thirty-eight, deserted and neglected by all, save a few faithful friends and a devoted mother, who stood by his death-bed to the last."