BOBBIE DAWSON. 83 



the subject than that which appeared in a journal for which 

 I was at the time writing hunting notes. I take the following 

 from the article, which appeared the day after the old man's 

 death, June 18, 1902 :— 



A later day Nimrod is dead ! With the demise of Bobbie Dawson„ 

 of Bilsdale, not only the pack with which he was so long identified, 

 but what he himself was pleased to term " the sport of all sport," has 

 lost its oldest supporter. Bobbie Dawson — he was always called 

 " Bobbie " — was ninety years old, and was for a period extending over 

 sixty of them whip for the Bilsdale. Thus it may be imagined that with 

 him dies not only a veteran, and a character of more than local 

 note, but also much tradition, and much that is more than interesting 

 regarding hunting and the methods of huntsmen of a generation of 



which he was one of the few survivors From his youth 



up his life has been an extraordinary one, and added to this his own 

 personality has been so original, so similar, yet so dissimilar to his 

 contemporaries, that it is a question as to whether the old whip earned 

 his fame because of that personality, and his own characteristics, or 

 because of his wonderful enthusiasm in matters venatic. To everyone 

 who is connected by official position with hounds falls a greater or lesser 

 share of hero worship, and where youth grows into manhood, and 

 manhood into old age in the service of one pack, and in the worship — 

 this is no misnomer so far as Bobbie was concerned — of one sport, 

 the hero worship essentially increases. Yet had our hero been innocent 

 of that dry humour, that peculiar, almost whining speech, that smallness 

 of stature, and had he not told wonderful stories of ghosts, of spells 

 and the like, had he in a word combined with his long service naught 

 but his untiring tirelessness and enthusiasm, the probability is he would 

 have lived and died in the isolated dale which gave him birth unhonoured 

 and unsung. He travelled more than the ordinary dalesman of his 

 day. Meeting other packs of hounds, visiting other hunting countries, 

 alike for erudition and curiosity, he made a host of acquaintances and 

 distinguished himself not only by " alius sayin' what he thowt " (not 

 by any means always a wise precept to follow), but by having engrafted 

 in his nature not one grain of the snob. No matter whether it was 

 the Earl of Feversham, the Marquess of Londonderry or Zetland, rich 

 or poor, high or low in the social scale, he was Bobbie Dawson just the 

 same. And they could not be more than sportsmen in his eyes on 

 common ground. With him " tongue scraping " was an acquisition 

 never attempted. His mother's tongue was good enough for him, 

 even though it might be Sanscrit to his hearer. Of Bobbie, one thing 

 may be said, he was not verbose. When he spoke he had something 

 to say, and usually something worth saying, whilst the way he said it 

 demanded a hearing. He could criticise another pack of hounds to- 

 the master in a manner which no one else would have dared to attempt. 



