Colonel Mellish, however, accepted his lot with considerable equanimity, and lived at his somewhat modest abode without any mortifying regrets. Having married one of the daughters of the Marchioness of Lansdowne,[8] who brought him a very handsome fortune, his circumstances again became easy, and he was enabled to indulge in those rural pursuits which appear early and late to have been congenial to his disposition. He took to coursing and established a fine stud of greyhounds. He also bred cattle with great success, winning many prizes at northern cattle shows, and obtaining high prices for his stock, and more fortunate than most men of his disposition and tastes, ended his life in comfort and peace. His death, however, occurred at a comparatively early age, for he fell a victim to dropsy in his thirty-seventh year. Another gallant sporting man, though of quite another description, was the Anglo-Indian Colonel John Mordaunt, a natural son of the Earl of Peterborough. John Mordaunt, as a boy, was too wild to learn much at school, his whole time being devoted to playing the truant; as he often said, "one half of his days were spent in being flogged for the other half." Devoted to cards from youth, he received many a castigation in consequence. "You may shuffle, Mordaunt, but I can cut," was the remark made to him by his schoolmaster on more than one occasion. In consequence of this unsatisfactory behaviour, when the boy left school he was about as learned as when he first was sent there. His guardians were very much annoyed at this and blamed his master, upon which young Mordaunt very handsomely stepped forward to exculpate the latter, whose attention he declared to have been unparalleled. Slipping off his clothes, he exhibited the earnestness of the good man's endeavours; humorously observing, that as nothing could be got into his brains, his master had done his best to impress his instructions on the opposite seat of learning. When the moment came for the youth to pass muster before the India directors he could not be found, and it was nearly too late when he was at last discovered playing marbles in Dean's Yard. No time, however, was wasted in driving him up to Leadenhall Street, where, more bent on frivolity than on answering the grave questions put by his examiners, he was near being rejected as an idiot, when one of the quorum, who understood such a disposition well and who probably wished to see John appointed, asked him if he understood cribbage. In an instant young Mordaunt's attention was thoroughly roused, his eyes glistened, and regardless of every matter relative to his appointment, he pulled out a pack of cards, so greasy as scarcely to be distinguished, and offered "to play the gentleman _for any sum he chose_!"