MR. H. W. SELBY LOWNDES AS M.F.H. 137 



siastic. Not unfrequently she had puppies in the perambu- 

 lator with her children, giving them both an airing together. 

 I have not space to enumerate the many excellent runs he 

 had, both on the moorlands and in the low country. At the 

 end of his third year he resigned the mastership of the 

 Bilsdale, and was elected M.F.H. of the East Kent, where 

 he has shown some excellent sport, killing a record number 

 of foxes during his first season, and finishing one great run 

 last season (1905-6) on a borrowed bicycle, having ridden 

 his horse to a standstill. 



Following his era, the Bilsdale once again became trencher 

 fed. Mr. Lowndes left a few puppies, and these the Bilsdale 

 Hunt Committee took back into the dale, with which to* 

 commence the formation of a new pack — for that was prac- 

 tically what they had to do. They were without a master, a 

 huntsman, or a whip, and the financial position was not too 

 substantial. At a meeting of the Committee, Thomas 

 Bentley, a nephew of Peter Bentley, a well-known Bilsdale 

 sportsman of former years, who was " desperate keen," had 

 shown himself a straight man over the moors during the tirne 

 Mr. Lowndes had the pack, and apart from the fact that he 

 was " a hunting bred 'un," he was eminently the right man 

 to take the dual office of master and huntsman. He accepted 

 the office purely from a love of the sport, for he knew full 

 well that his salary would be hardly sufficient to keep his 

 horse, let alone procure him uniform and pay the incidental 

 expenses which always fall to the master of a pack, be it ever 

 so humble. So, mounted on a wonderful old Irish hunter, 

 which he purchased for something under ten pounds, and 

 with a small pack of hounds, he commenced his first season, 

 1900-1. So far as pageantry, status, and perhaps so far as 

 scientific hunting went, this might be a retrogressive step, 

 but it was a sporting one. It seemed as though the hunt 

 must become extinct, and but for such men as Bentley in 

 the dale there is little doubt it would. 



For three years did Bentley hunt hounds, having E. 

 Barr whipping to him at first. During the second season 

 he had no whip, and except in the Hambleton country, 



