100 England's oldest hunt. 



fundrils i' ten days, an' Ah isn't a bit better." Funerals 

 are a sort of gathering of the clans. All enmity for the 

 nonce is dropped, if such there existed. As a mark of respect, 

 and I am afraid as something of an outing, too, friends who 

 have not met " sen t'last burrin' " all foregather to eat 

 and smoke, and after discussing relationships, turn the con- 

 versation into general channels. 



In introducing the subject of death in his " Wit, Character 

 and Folklore of the North Riding of Yorkshire," my good 

 father says : — 



" A lack of the needful may compel the parties concerned to wed 

 without ostentation, but not so in the case of a funeral. Every sacrifice 

 is made to honour the dead. They like it to be said that their loved 

 ones were decently buried. They themselves feel proud to say, ' Ay, 

 he's geean ; wa've gitten him sahded by, an' it war a beautiful funeral, 

 Ah will say that.' " 



Knowing and appreciating all this, and with a desire for 

 something of the spectacular as well as to have his last 

 journey down the dale accompanied by hounds, by horsemen, 

 and by the members of the hunt in scarlet, Bobbie was, 

 as stated, most anxious, as he himself put it, "That he s'u'd 

 be buried like a hunter." I may mention that one day 

 when the old man was at Potto Grange, the residence of Mr. 

 F. Wilson Horsfall, the present master of the Bilsdale, he 

 saw some old pictures of the burial of Tom Moody (a Shrop- 

 shire whip). Not usually a demonstrative man, he did 

 on this occasion wax enthusiastic. He lingered over these 

 old prints as a child over his first picture book. He left 

 them only to return and to return again. They had a 

 peculiar fascination for him, and though he said nothing 

 at the time except that " They were despert fine picters," 

 still they made an impression on his mind which never 

 left him. He never saw them again, but the various scenes 

 depicted in the series and the story told by them were 

 accurately and indelibly imprinted upon his mind. I do 

 not think the old man was possessed of much poetry in his 

 nature, though he had a certain amount of sentimentality, 

 which is bordering on the confines of the same admirable 

 quality, if not often synonymous. There they were, these 



