BUCKINGHAM IN LEGEND. 29 



" Ho ! ho ! ye gallant hunters 



When must I come again ? 

 Never shall ye want a fox 



To chase along the plain. 



And when your need is greatest, 



But call upon my name, 

 And I will come, and you shall have 



The best of sport and game." 



It would be a matter of impossibility to give all the 

 stories told of His Grace — they would require a volume to 

 themselves. His sporting peregrinations spread over a wide 

 area — what are now the Sinnington, Farndale, and Bilsdale 

 countries — and we find him giving a present here, a favour 

 there, and a jest everywhere, all of which have been handed 

 down as heirlooms — even the personal reminiscences — to this 

 day. He once had an accident whilst hunting in Bilsdale, 

 and was taken to Breckon Hill, past the door of which run3 

 the old high-road to Kirbymoorside, via Bonfield Gill and 

 Bransdale. Old Dawson, when lying on his death-bed here 

 — Mrs. Teasdale, a distant relation, and keen sportswoman, 

 having taken compassion on him — said : — 



" Ti think Ah's mebbe lyin' in t' saam room where t'Deuk ligged 

 when he wur badly ! You should be very prood Meg 'at ivver there 

 was sike a grand feller in your house." 



The story goes that the Duke was taken on to Kirbymoor- 

 side, when he was fit to be removed. Good sportswoman as 

 she is, this " Meg " referred to, admitted to me the other day 

 that she did not know her house was any the better for a 

 Duke having been " badly in it." Is this lack of sentiment 

 or stern commonsense ? I think the former. 



We have now arrived at the end of the career of the 

 famous hunting Duke. We have seen him a favourite — 

 it might be said the favourite — at Court, we have marked 

 the time when that Court knew him no more, and when he 

 settled down, if his peregrinations into the dales and wood- 

 lands can be styled "settling down." We have watched 

 him set the seed of fox-hunting in Yorkshire, and particularly 

 in the countries hunted by the Bilsdale, Sinnington, and 



