redeemed it by the grant in Ralegh's favour of a ninety-nine years' lease of Wilscombe. [Sidenote: _Sherborne Castle._] [Sidenote: _Falconry._] Ralegh found occupation at Sherborne. We know something of his life there. We know, though not nearly enough, much more of it than when Gibbon assigned the absence of the 'details of private life' as a principal reason for the abandonment of his original decision to take Ralegh for his literary theme. It was varied and animated. He pursued amusement and business with equal earnestness. In his _Farewell to the Court_, which foreshadows the sentiment of this period, though probably written earlier, he mourns for his 'sweet spring spent,' his 'summer well-nigh done;' but he had energy for other matters than repining at 'joys expired like truthless dreams.' He built. He planted. He diverted himself with rural pastimes, especially with falconry. Throughout his career he always was ready for a hawking match or a bargain for falcons. He once offered the reversion in fee of an Irish leasehold for a goshawk. An incident of his Munster estate, which doubtless he valued highly, was his title to half the produce of an eyrie of hawks in the wood of Mogelly. Amidst the anxieties of his final expedition he found spirits and strength for a trial of hawks at Cloyne. The leisure and opportunities of Sherborne stimulated his ardour for the sport. Cecil kept falcons. In August 1593, Ralegh wrote to him from Gillingham Forest, of which he and his brother Carew were joint rangers: 'The Indian falcon is sick of the backworm, and therefore, if you will be so bountiful to give another falcon, I will provide you a running gelding.' He chased another sort of game than herons. In April, 1594, he boasted that he had caught in the Lady Stourton's house a notable stout villain, with his copes and bulls. 'He calls himself John Mooney; but he is an Irishman, and, I think, can say much.' Both his wife and he soon grew fond of Sherborne, 'his fortune's fold,' as he called it alike in verse and in a letter of 1593 to Cecil. Thither they always gladly returned, though they were often called elsewhere. The plague dislodged the family in 1594. It was, he wrote in September, 1594, raging in the town of Sherborne 'very hot.' 'Our Bess,' he added, 'is one way sent, her son another way; and I am in great trouble therewith.' Less alarming occasions were constantly taking him away. He had to be in Devonshire and Cornwall, discharging the duties of his Wardenship and Lieutenancy. Every year he went to Bath for the waters. He resorted to Weymouth for sea bathing for his wife and child. He was much at all seasons in London. [Sidenote: _Durham House._] [Sidenote: _Mile End and Islington._]