40 ikiuGS of tbe IfDunttno^jflelCt 



the gauntlet in his shirt, amid an indescribable scene of 

 merriment and confusion ! 



* The Rev. Dr Stephens had paid for his nocturnal 

 escapade, one would have thought, sufficiently to satisfy 

 the most exacting. But the squire and his guests, just 

 ripe for fun, insisted that he should dress and come 

 down into the dining-room to finish the night — or morn- 

 ing — which closed in with Dibdin singing his last new 

 song to music of his own composing, with a jolly rollicking 

 chorus by the whole company.' 



It was during this visit as far as I can make out — for 

 there is a haziness about the date of it — that Dibdin 

 made the acquaintance of Tom Moody, then falling 

 into the sere, the yellow leaf. Squire Forester had 

 previously to this given up hunting, and his hounds went 

 to Aldenham as a trencher pack, — that is to say, the 

 farmers of the neighbourhood agreed each to keep two 

 or three hounds. They were collected the night before 

 the meet, fed after the day's sport, and then dismissed 

 with a crack of the whip, each hound going to his 

 own farm. This dispersal of the squire's pack was a 

 terrible blow to Tom Moody — he fairly broke down and 

 cried when he saw the hounds that he knew and loved so 

 well leaving the old kennels, and begged to be allowed 

 to keep one very old favourite ; and with this old friend 

 the disconsolate whipper-in might be seen sunning 

 himself in the deserted courtyard of Willey Hall. 

 Towards the end of the year 1796, Tom began to break 

 up, and feeling that his end was near, sent for his old 

 master. When the squire came, honest Tom thus ad- 

 dressed him : — 



' May it please you, squire, I have one request to 

 make, and it is the last favour I shall ask.' 



