30 England's oldest hunt. 



Farndale packs at this day. We have noted that, the smile 

 of royalty and the nobles denied him, he succeeds in finding 

 a warm place in the heart of the sporting and hospitable 

 Tyke, who, no doubt then as now, was some little time ere 

 he had " quite reckoned up " the innovation of a Duke into 

 his midst, and who was possibly won over by his manly 

 qualities very much sooner than he would have been had His 

 Grace not possessed himself of the art of studying correctly 

 the people amongst whom he had come to reside — and it needs 

 a very fine conception of this art ere the Yorkshireman will 

 " tak tiv a stranger." It takes some time ere the inhabitants 

 of our County will accept the stranger into their midst as a 

 friend, but once having come within that category it is 

 found the endeavour is well worth the result. The York- 

 shireman, unlike his brothers in the South, is nothing if not 

 " independent." Indeed, we pride ourselves upon this 

 imagined virtue, and peradventure carry it a little too far 

 towards obstinacy sometimes. I have heard old men say, 

 " Ah've neea call ta be behodden (beholden) ti neea ya,n, 

 ner to scrape mah tongue ner gie mesell a cold in t'head " 

 (i.e., lift the hat). 



The Duke reached the hearts of the conservative people 

 among whom he ended his days. If it is true to-day that 

 the master of hounds is a sort of king over the territory in 

 which he shows sport — and to a greater or lesser degree 

 this is the case — then the first of all masters of foxhounds 

 was a king indeed. If they knew of his shame they knew 

 too of his glory, if they knew of the slurs upon his character 

 they would not blush for him, for to-day the morals of our 

 dales are not remarkable for their strictness, much less 

 would they be so then. They were " to his virtues very 

 kind," and as for his faults, why there's many an old dalesman 

 won't hear of them to-day. His end was by no means so 

 ignominious as we are led to believe. The legend runs 

 that whilst a fox was being dug out in Bilsdale, His Grace 

 sat down on the damp ground, and thus caught a chill. 

 Digging out a fox among the hills is a matter of time and 

 difficulty, and it is possible that the Duke was heated with 



