180 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



of it, but I liked what I have seen, and my recollections of 

 the hunt go back to the mastership of Mr. John Booth, in 

 the 'seventies, but I was never lucky enough to fall in for 

 a really good hunt. About the same period I saw the Hur- 

 worth on many Saturdays, when the late Lord Londonderry 

 (then Lord Castlereagh) was master. During one winter I 

 was at Croft during many " week-ends," and hunting with 

 the Hurworth naturally came in my way, and what I rode were 

 mostly thoroughbreds from the Croft stud, which at that time 

 was owned by Mrs. Winteringham and her son " Johnny," 

 who provided me with several mounts, most of them very 

 curiously behaved, tail foremost brutes. One of these was a 

 barren brood mare, who could gallop in great form, but when 

 she arrived at a fence she would either go straight through 

 it without rising or would whip round and bolt. After riding 

 this mare I used to come home with half a dozen thorns stick- 

 ing in my legs. The York and Ainsty I first saw during 

 Colonel Fairfax's mastership, coming by train from Darling- 

 ton, with John Greenwell. The meet was at Sessay, and our 

 slow train arrived long before hounds were due, but several 

 of the York contingent had also arrived by train, and the wait- 

 ing-room was besieged by a crowd who clamoured for a fire on 

 an extremely cold morning. I mention this merely to let 

 the present generation know the difl&culties hunting people 

 had to contend with forty years ago, if they attended a distant 

 meet by train. No doubt at an earlier period hacks would 

 have been requisitioned for such a disitanoe, but when the rail- 

 ways came they were, naturally enough, taken advantage of by 

 both horses and their owners. But there were few, 

 if any, hunting specials in those days, and horses 

 were only allowed on the slowest stop-at-all-stations train. 

 It happened also that there were very early morning 

 trains on most of the branch lines, and, for example, 

 when hunting from Shotley with any of the packs in 

 the Darlington distiict, one had to leave a sta,tion named 

 Blackhill — two miles from Shotley — before seven in the morn- 

 ing, and after reaching Darlington there w£is at least an hour 

 for breakfast before it was necessary to leave for the meet. 

 Now, the York and Ainsty country is the most irregular as 

 regards conformation of any in the kingdom. To give some 

 idea of its length, it may be explained that the Great Northern 



