94 HISTORY OF 7 HE YORK AND AINSTY HUNT. 



'The York and Ainsty. 



' I generally, year by year, give you a good run with the ould 

 ' York and Ainsty, and their heaven-born huntsman. Sir 

 ' Charles ; and though I wish it otherwise, because my 

 'enemies cry out that "it is all partiality, favour, and 

 ' affection," it must needs be from Pilmoor. The morning 

 'of Saturday last broke a rare scenting one, — "a southerly 

 ' wind and a cloudy sky " with a vengeance, for a heavy 

 ' curtain of mist seemed to enshroud all things. We had 

 ' a fair sprinkling of all colours, pinks, blacks, and all hues. 

 ' The meet was at Thirkleby Park, the seat of Lady Frank- 

 ' land Russell. Few better sportsmen than the late Sir 

 ' Robert ever rode to hounds in Leicestershire, " when 

 * George the Third was king." His apt pencil has pourtrayed 

 ' those scenes in the well-known sketches published. His 

 ' widow, I believe, is as anxious as ever tyro first fledged 

 ' with the Pytchley was to show sport, but yet it is a 

 ' curious coincidence that though plenty of foxes are tally- 

 ' hoed away at the beginning of the season, there are none 

 ' at the end. It is no fault of her son-in-law, Sir William 

 ' Galwey, the respected member for Thirsk, who has the 

 ' shooting, for he has a plentiful supply of old Caesars at 

 ' Brafferton Spring Wood, which is the piece dc resistance 

 ' for all these parts. However, Thirkleby was blank, and 

 ' so was Lady Down's plantation, called, I believe. Spring 

 ' Wood, and the field looked blank, for many had come a 

 ' long mile to do honour to this once-famed meet.' 



But this is quite enough of 'Eboracum,' whose high- 

 falutin nonsense, erratic English, and plentiful repetition of 

 holloas (there are some seventeen of them in about as many 

 lines), make very sorry reading. They found a fox in Sessay 

 Wood, and after running a couple of rings round it, they 

 were out in the open with the fox, according to ' Eboracum,' 

 five minutes ahead, a statement which requires to be taken 

 cum graiw sails. But which way the fox took at first it is 

 impossible to say. ' Eboracum ' devotes that part of the 

 space allotted to him to hyperbole instead of to history, and 

 the first place we are landed at is Thirkleby Beck. Then 



