FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



' ' Here's a health to the parson despising control, 

 "Who to better his parish, his health, or his soul, 

 On my honour I think he does each. 

 Five days in the week follows the fox and the hound. 

 On the sixth duly goes his parochial round, 

 And on Sunday devoutly can preach." 



When hunting on the fells one sees many 

 curious effects of mist, light, and shade. A 

 similar phenomenon to the " Spectre of the 

 Brocken " is by no means uncommon. There 

 is a legend of a curious mirage effect on Souther- 

 fell. In 1735 a farm-servant thought he saw 

 troops marching over the mountain summit, but 

 his story was of course ridiculed. Two years 

 later the farmer and his family saw the same 

 thing, and they too were thought to be suffering 

 from hallucinations. At midsummer, 1745, they 

 invited a large party to view the same scene, 

 and they all saw an army with carriages on the 

 top of the fell. On going next day to look for 

 the footprints none could be found. Eventually 

 it came out that the Jacobite Army had been 

 marching that evening away to the north, and it 

 was supposed that their figures had been re- 

 flected by some transparent vapour. A similar 

 mirage was seen on Helvellyn on the eve of the 

 battle of Marston Moor. 



Mention has already been made of the church 

 by the shore, which was used as a hiding place for 

 contraband liquor. In the later days of the 

 illicit whisky trading, two very famous char- 

 acters carried on the business in the I^akes. One 

 was ' ' Whisky " Walker, of Watendlath, the other 

 " Lanty " Slee, of Langdale and Tilberthwaite. 

 Walker was initiated in the working of a still 

 by a Scotch pedlar, and Slee was Walker's pupil. 

 Walker was never caught by the Revenue Officers, 

 whereas the latter managed to "land" Slee. 



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