MR. GEORGE OSBALDESTON in 



known style, sold him for £joo, and on the sale reaching 

 the ears of his father, a master of hounds in Scotland, 

 Baird pere is reported to have said, " It matters little, 

 for though Davie has sold the fiddle, he has not parted 

 with the bow." This anecdote has been told in a 

 variety of forms of different people ; but as it was re- 

 lated of Davie Baird in Bell's Life as long ago as 1840, 

 it is as likely as not to be the original version. 



During Mr. Osbaldeston's mastership of the Quorn, 

 John Gully used to spend a good deal of time with the 

 Squire, for though not much of a bruiser over a country 

 he was devoted to hunting, and afterwards, when he 

 bought Ackworth Park, near Pontefract, he became 

 a great supporter of the Badsworth. Among John 

 Gully's hunters was a much-admired horse called Jack 

 Ketch, and in connection with him a curious story was 

 current in Leicestershire. After Gully's stud was sold, 

 a Meltonian whose new horse was admired said that it 

 was Gully's Jack Ketch, and he added that there never 

 was a better. Whereupon another man said, " My good 

 sir, you surely must be crazy, for the horse I am now 

 riding is Gully's Jack Ketch. I bought him from 

 Milton, who purchased all Gully's horses." Only a 

 few days later a third and a fourth Jack Ketch turned 

 up, and on inquiries being set on foot it appeared that 

 the dealer in question, knowing that the original Jack 

 Ketch had a marvellous reputation, reduplicated him 

 ad lib., so that eventually no one claimed to have the 

 original horse. 



In the company of thrusters in which he found 

 himself the Squire was quite capable of holding his 

 own ; but to timber he always had an intense dislike. 



" I hate that d d carpentry," was his remark when 



timber came in the line ; but over other kinds of fences 

 he rode fearlessly enough. 



It was in the early part of 182 1 that he met with the 



