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XLbc Bvambam ni^oor Ibunt. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Bramham Moor Country. 



" From Skipton-in-Craveii to Selby, and right up to the 

 walls of York." Such is a rough outline of the country 

 hunted over by the earlier Masters of the Bramham Moor, 

 and up the year 1816. What a glorious expanse of 

 country over which to hold rule ! Wide spreading moors 

 and unenclosed grass land, mingled here and there with 

 plough ; a sparsely-inhabited district ; no railways and no 

 big fields : what a paradise for a master of hounds to find 

 himself in ! Over the unenclosed land hounds would run 

 from morning till night, without a fox perhaps ever coming 

 across anything to head him all day. Not much jumping 

 to be done in a great deal of the country in those days, 

 though here and there a wide drain would try the mettle 

 of the men and horses of the brave days of old. There 

 would be plenty of 'boggy bottoms' to try them, too, for 

 it is by no means always plain sailing in an unenclosed 



B 



