SOME YORKSHIRE AND WESTERN MIDLAND HUNTS. 181 



and North-Eastern main line to Edinburgh enters it 

 south of Selby — I believe the river Aire divides it 

 from the Badsworth — and leaves it a mile or two south 

 of Thirsk. It must be nearly forty miles from its 

 most southern to its most northern point, and in 

 places, more especially near York, it is very narrow indeed. 

 Lord Middleton meets at the " Fourth Milestone, Stockton 

 Forest," which is, as the name suggests, four miles out of York 

 on the north-east, and the Bramham Moor come to within 

 about half a dozen miles of the city on the west. It will be 

 understood, then, that members of the York and Ainsty hunt 

 who attend as many meets as possible had — and still have — 

 to use the train very freely as a covert hack. 



Now, in normal times, of course — the motor is doubtless 

 greatly used, but at the time I am writing of the early morning 

 trains did duty, and as Sessay was not far from twenty miles 

 from York, all the York contingent went there by train. 

 North-west of Y'ork the York and Ainsty country includes a 

 large district between the Bedale and the Bramham Moor 

 countries, which goes a long way west, up the Nidd Valley, 

 ajid contains a wild sporting country adjoining the moors. 

 This part of the hunt, broadly speaking, lies between Knares- 

 borough and Ripon, and must be at least forty miles from the 

 Selby district of the same hunt. The Ainsty proper is south 

 of York, and here, too, the country widens out to the Holder- 

 ness border. I only once had a day in that district, where 

 hounds had a brilliant forty minutes, but the going was 

 terribly deep, and I never remember seeing so many beaten 

 horses in one hunt. I imagine that Melbourne country is 

 always deep in wet weather, but when I was there a heavy 

 fall of snow had just disappeared, and the going was worse 

 than usual. 



I have mislaid or lost a number of old diaries and cuttings 

 — chiefly from local newspapers — and therefore I am unable 

 to give dates, but on one of my few visits to the York and 

 Ainsty country I remember a curious thing. It was in the 

 Easingwold district, and hounds had hunted a fox well for 

 the best part of an hour, when they ran, with a fine cry, into 

 a not very large spinney of old trees. The field came up, 

 and in a minute or two there was silence in the covert. Every- 

 one thought the fox had been killed, and huntsman and 



