222 IT I STORY OF THE BRAMHAM MOOR HUNT. 



countries, and when they went into the latter districts they 

 never made the excuse that they had ' left their water- 

 ' jumpers at home.' Indeed, in the Shires or out of them, it 

 would have been difficult to have found a ' harder ' or more 

 sporting field than that which followed the fortunes of the 

 Bramham Moor. 



Perhaps the pride of place should be given to ' the old 

 ' offender,' which was the name by which Mr. Tom Fairfax 

 of Newton Kyme was known amongst his hunting friends ; 

 a name, too, which seems to have been pretty well deserved 

 from what can be learnt of his doings in the field. ' Resolved 

 ' to be first,' was his motto, and it was his boast that, from 

 twenty to seventy, he would never allow any man to go in 

 front of him at a fence. He was as fine a horseman as he 

 was a hard one, and no horse ever refused with him. In 

 his dress he was rather peculiar, for instead of the orthodox 

 top-boot he wore boots which came up to his thigh, some- 

 thing^ after the fashion of the celebrated Lord Alvanlev, with 

 whom he was a contemporary. Spurs he always eschewed, 

 and he used a straight cutting-whip instead of a hunting- 

 crop. One of the most jealous riders of his time, he kept 

 going longer than falls to the lot of most men, and he 

 occasionally harassed his son. Colonel Fairfax, when the 

 latter was Master of the York and Ainsty, as he had harassed 

 the Lords Harewood and the Lane Foxes in the days of 

 his youth. 



He was a very abstemious man, in an age when abste- 

 miousness was not a conspicuous virtue, and he was athletic 

 withal. Like a distinguished statesman, he was partial to 

 the felling of trees, and was very skilful at this occupation. 

 Indeed, there were Yorkshiremen who would have backed 

 him against the statesman in question, and it is highly 

 probable that he would have had the best of it. Descended 

 from a long line of soldiers and statesmen, Mr. Fairfax 



