OLD TIMES AND OLD CHARACTERS 



CHAPTER XXIV 



FROM time immemorial hunting has been 

 the favourite sport of the Lakeland dales 

 folk, and when " O'er the bottle at eve 

 of our pleasures we'll tell " hunting yarns and 

 anecdotes serve to while away the hours. In 

 John Peel's time conviviality came next to 

 hunting, and Peel himself loved a merry gathering. 

 The old-timers of Ireby used to say " As for his 

 drinking by goy he wad drink wad Peel till he 

 couldn't stand, an' they wad just clap him on t' 

 pony and away he wad gang as reet as a fiddle. 

 Odds-barns ! they were hunters i' them days." 

 For many years Peel rode a pony he called 

 ' ' Dunny," and when mounted on his old favourite 

 he was able to keep in touch with the hounds and 

 see a great deal of what they did. 



Speaking of drink another well-known hunts- 

 man, old Jack Parker, of the Sinnington, once 

 said as he sighed for the good old days, ' ' gentle- 

 folk don't drink nowadays. Ah think they 

 mun a takken ta lappen up t' tooth watter i' 

 their bed-rooms instead." Like Peel, old Jack 

 was always up betimes, no matter how freely he 

 had imbibed the night before, and differed from 

 the sportsman in the song, who said : 



" I cannot get up, ye overnight's cup 

 So terribly lies on my head, 

 Besides my dear wife says ' My dear do not rise, 

 But cuddle m.e longer abed, m.y dear boy. 

 But cuddle me longer abed.'" 



