CHAPTER I. 



THE HURWORTH COUNTRY AND 

 AN HISTORIC RUN. 



Jovrocks : Wot 'ounds have you been with ? 



Pigg : A, a vast, yen way and another. Ar ken all the 



hounds amaist : Tyndale, and D'orm, and Horworth, 



and all. 



Jovrocks : Ah, but those'll be Scotch dogs — a country I knows 

 nothin' whatever on — have you been in any civilised 

 country ? 



— Handley Cross. 



ONSEQUENT upon his ignorance of the 

 location of the Hurworth domains and the broad 

 Northumbrian accent of the immortal James 

 Pigg, Jorrocks was led to suppose that the 

 country was in the wilds of Scotland, or, at any 

 rate, not within the realms of what he called 

 ' civilisation.' Intercommunication, the increase of sporting 

 literature and the growing custom of gadding from country 

 to country nowadays, brings Shires and Provinces very close 

 together, and had John Jorrocks lived to-day he would have 

 been better versed in the story and tradition, past and present, 

 of the Northern packs. We must not, however, find fault with 

 him for having placed the Hurworth without the pale of 

 civilisation, for we have often heard Hurworth followers 

 similarly exclude portions of their territory and anathematise 

 them. For instance, on those occasions, a few seasons ago, 

 when foxes seemed to have 2. penchant for running to the hills, 



