THE BILSDALE HUNT. 63 



may have had something to do with his disposition. It 

 was Longfellow who wrote : " Believe me, every heart has 

 its secret sorrows, which the world knows not ; and often- 

 times we call a man cold when he is only sad." It is a 

 pathetic fact that when one comes to look into the lives of 

 those who were so ardent in the pursuit of the chase in these 

 dales, and most assiduous in promoting its welfare, they 

 nearly all died somewhat sad deaths, and were more or less 

 impoverished. Bell had nothing of the sporting appearance 

 of either of the Spinks, or of Bobbie Dawson. He had a 

 heavy face and a fixed expression. The sketch of him is 

 from a photograph I had taken a year or so before his death, 

 in company with Dawson and Spink. It is a good one, and 

 the artist has caught his expression well. He had a kindly 

 voice, and I believe a nature in accordance with it. For 

 long, and up to the time of his death, he was Chairman of 

 the Hunt Committee, and presided at the Hunt dinners. 

 I remember at one of these functions we wound up with 

 " Auld Lang Syne," and he took hold of my hand — we 

 formed a circle round the room — and said, " Nivver you say 

 owt wrang aboot Bilsdel Hoonds in them there papers you 

 write to and alius stick tiv 'em an' help 'em on." Mr. Dixon 

 says of him : — 



George Bell's father succeeded these two worthies (Tate and Leng) 

 George Bell, Junr., who had been huntsman for them, still continuing 

 to carry the horn. Bell made an early start as a huntsman, for he was 

 only 15 years old when he first took the arduous duties appertaining to 

 the office. He was born a huntsman, and from his first season showed 

 excellent sport. There was not a sufficiency of foxes to admit of it 

 being hunted two days a week, so they hunted fox and hare alternately, 

 hunting the hares on foot, but following the nobler quarry on horseback. 

 The hares they killed were not broken up, but were given to the farmers 

 who kept a hound. And a good few hares they did kill, if we are to 

 judge from the record of one day, when they owned to having killed 

 nine. Lively, a bitch descended from the Duke of Buckingham's 

 blood, was especially smart amongst the hares, and when they ran 

 into view would race out of the pack and course her hare like a grey- 

 hound. The strength of the pack in George Bell's time was about ten couple, 

 and it says something for their perseverance and skilful manner in which 

 they were handled, that they killed on an average from ten to fifteen 

 brace of foxes in a season during the thirty years that Bell hunted 



