"At that date Milnes was a wild, unstable creature, at one time devoting his days and nights to reading; at another giving them up to play; at another engrossed entirely with shooting; always agreeable, clever and sarcastick, he was everything by fits but nothing long, yet always dearly loved by his friends and companions, always a straightforward man, full of high feeling and honour. "Perhaps nothing will give a better idea of the wild spirit of his character than an occurrence that took place in his youthful days. At a time when Battues and a system of the preservation of game as it is now carried on in Norfolk were little known in this part of the country, he undertook the entire management of the game at Fryston, and succeeded in stocking the Plantations there with abundance of Pheasants. Not content with giving his orders to the keepers, he used frequently to accompany them in their nightly watches. "On one of these occasions they fell in with a party of poachers, who took to their heels. "Milnes, who was the foremost in the chace, succeeded in grappling one of the fugitives. The man struggled on to the brink of a deep quarry and finding that Milnes did not slacken his grasp, determined to dare the jump, calculating, as he afterwards confessed, that as his limbs were strong and well knit, that he should suffer no damage, but that Milnes, being slight, would break his leg. Milnes, nothing daunted, kept his hold, and went down with the poacher, whose calculations were reversed, for _he_ broke his legs, and Milnes escaped, comparatively speaking, unscathed." Rodes Milnes, the younger brother of Pemberton, though gifted with less natural genius, at first bid fair to be of a more dependable character; and while his mother retained an interest in the firm of Milnes, Heywood & Co., he continued to go into Wakefield regularly two or three times a week to look after the business, driving himself in a phaeton drawn by a pair of beautiful black ponies. But later he became closely connected with the turf, and many lively stories are attached to his name. He and Mr Peter of Stapleton were racing associates, and their stable won the St Leger no fewer than five times in eight years; he was also a turf comrade of Lord Glasgow, and after a successful day at York Races, it is said that these two friends would station themselves at the window of the inn where they were staying and stop every passenger to insist that he or she should drink a glass of wine with them. Rodes Milnes was exceedingly handsome, but later in life became very stout, after which he used to enjoy the pleasures of sport in a somewhat original fashion. In the middle of the plantations at Fryston was a mound on which he used to seat himself in a revolving chair; the keeper would then beat the neighbouring woods in order to drive the birds in the direction of the mound, and as they appeared, Rodes Milnes used to spin round in his chair and take rapid shots at the flying game.