114 BILSDALE AND .SINNINGTON. 



ardour of these gallant sportsmen is scarcely 

 damped, and they go on hunting and grumbling 

 at blank days, till, in many cases let us hope, 

 they make converts ; and that curse of foxhunters, 

 a blank day, becomes almost unknown. 



Nothing but an enthusiastic love of sport 

 could tempt men to hunt in the wild dales which 

 are to be found in such abundance on the north 

 and east coast of Yorkshire, yet there is scarcely 

 one of them is not regularly hunted, and many of 

 them boast a pack of their own. Trencher-fed, 

 and plainly appointed they may be, but they 

 show famous sport with the wild hiJl foxes, and 

 it takes a good man to live with them over their 

 own rough countries. And rough they are and 

 no mistake. Moor, mountain, and wood, with 

 here and there an unfathomable bog by way of a 

 change, and to impart a little colour to the scene, 

 follow each other in pleasing succession. Here 

 and there, there is a little open country, but in 

 many of the localities to which we allude you 

 might hunt from dawn till dark and never see 

 anything but moor and wood. The knowledge 

 of woodcraft these ' keen ' sportsmen possess 

 would astonish a man whose only idea of hunting 

 ,is that it is a kind of amateur steejDlechase, and, 

 indeed, were it not for that knowledge they 

 would rarely ever see the end of a run. 



The country hunted by the Bilsdale hounds is 

 such an one as wc have attempted to describe. 



