1 06 Saddle and Sirloin. 



fectly honeycombed with earths. Two of Mr. Nelson's 

 sons were off to blast a burn at Burnscarth, to try and 

 recover a terrier which had been lost to sight for five 

 days after a fox. Its two companions had gradually 

 backed out of the earth, and just as we were talking 

 of " Dandy," he limped up, a perfect skeleton, and very 

 sore from the in-fighting. A fell fox, which Mr. 

 Jackson Gilbanks describes as being " fierce as a tiger, 

 and long as a hay-band, and with an amiable cast of 

 features very like the Chancellor of the Exchequer," 

 is very bad to kill " top o' t' ground," and still worse 

 when he gets into a burn. Not long since a single 

 foxhound ran one till both could hardly trot, down 

 to Gatesgarth, and into the lake, where, greatly to the 

 foxhound's relief, " Bright" gave the finishing throat- 

 nip. 



Old John Peel was for many years the hunting hero 

 of Cumberland ; and Cumbrians, who never met 

 before, have grasped each other's hands, and joyfully 

 claimed county kindred in the Indian bungalow or the 

 log-hut of the backwoods, when one of them being 

 called on for a song, struck up 



" D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so grey?" 



He seems to have come into this world only to send 

 foxes out of it, and liked plenty of elbow-room for his 

 sport. Briton was a very favourite hound ; and when 

 old John died/* and his pack was broken up, young 

 John sent the little black-and-tan to Mr. Crozier, of 

 the Riddings, near Keswick. This gentleman hunted 

 the Blencathra pack while old John was still in the 

 flesh, and the hounds joined drags two or three times 

 on the mountains. Saddleback, which is just behind 

 his home, and " the dark brow of the lofty Helvellyn," 



* " D'ye ken John Peel," &c., is quite the Cumberland anthem, and 

 has been very admirably set to music by Mr. Metcalfe, Chiswick Street, 

 Carlisle, 



