THE SINXINGTON. 163 



would carry no one but Jack or 'the lassie,' and was a 

 thundering big sixteen-two Irish horse that could jump a 

 tower. He once topped a wall of Lord Feversham's, built to 

 keep the deer back ; and, when Jack was on the road from 

 Thirsk to IS'orthallerton, settled a dispute with the ' pike ' 

 •woman by treating her gate in the same cavalier fashion, though, 

 with tears in her eyes, the old lady begged Jack to desist, and 

 said she would let him through free rather than he should risk 

 his neck in the attempt. 



"AVhile the foxes are at rest, in the summer months, Parker 

 keeps his hand in at the badgei's, and, strange to say, his 

 hounds will not speak to a fox when so engaged, and throw 

 quite a different note when hunting 'Brock.' Perhaps, of the 

 two, he likes better to get away with Mr. Galton's otter-hounds, 

 and swears * there never was such music heard as that.' 



"At the hound-show at York, Lord Poltimore very much 

 wanted to see him, and was duly introduced by Mr. Parrington, 

 when Jack held out his hand and said, ' I am very glad to see 

 you ; ' then they got on famously, in spite of the desperately 

 broad Yorkshire dialect in which Jack indulges,, making an 

 interpreter all but a necessity when he fraternizes with a south 

 countryman. His lordship wanted to hear a real Yorkshire 

 View holloa ; then, by Jove ! Jack shouted and gave him one. 

 i^o doubt Jack is the character of the age amongst huntsmen, 

 and, when he's gone, we ne'er shall look upon his like again." 



This is a truthful sketch of the Sinnington menage at the 

 time, it was a few years ago, and, I suspect, things have not 

 greatly altered since. The country is composed of dingles, 

 woods, and steep hills, and part of it lies on the moors. Their 

 low country is short of good coverts, but, on the whole, I 

 suppose that, except in parts of Devonshire or Wales, the match 

 of the Sinnington, both for sport and the little expense at which 

 it is procured, could not possibly be found. I may state that 

 ;Mr. Eobert Ellerby is the present master. 



