Mr. Crozier s Hounds. 107 



which fills up the distance as you look from his 

 snuggery window, and flanks the vale of St. John, are, 

 along with Skiddaw, his three great hunting grounds. 

 Still, he is at times all over the lake country, and goes 

 right away into Lancashire. A few years since, when 

 he had been master for more than a quarter of a 

 century, the Cumberland and Westmoreland men 

 gave him a very handsome testimonial. It was a silver 

 tureen, with a mounted huntsman and hounds on the 

 cover, and round the stem some hounds among the 

 fern running into a fox and a hare. The handle of 

 the punch-ladle — for punch, not hare-soup, was its 

 more peculiar destiny — was the brush of a Skiddaw 

 fox. Poor little Isaac, the huntsman, was not for- 

 gotten ; and he received ten guineas and a " new rig 

 out" of scarlet and green. Two old men, Joshua 

 Fearon and John Wilkinson, each aged 78, who had 

 been, as the Scottish shepherds phrase it, " at a deal 

 of banes-breaking" (i.e., breaking-up a fox) ever since 

 childhood, attended the presentation ; but the senior 

 was John Hodgson, a Nimrod of 84, from near the 

 " ruined towers of Threlkeld Hall," in whose parish 

 hounds have been now kept for more than one hundred 

 years consecutively. 



Mr. Crozier supports the village custom well, and 

 has quite the goodwill of the lake district. He says 

 that, whether he is benighted or hungry, or feels weak 

 with fatigue on the mountains, he never lacks a wel- 

 come from farmer or cottager. The farmers' wives 

 and daughters " walk" the puppies, while the fathers 

 and brothers hunt with him ; and Wordsworth tells 

 of the love of the lakers for a hunt. As in Devon- 

 shire — 



" What cared they 

 For shepherding or tillage ? 

 To nobler sports did Simon rouse 

 The sleepers of the village." 



The Blencathra pack has been in Mr. Crozier's 



