Sparkler of the Hurwerth. 1 65 



and Ainsty Susan), one of a litter of three couple, all at 

 work in their third season, and all good. This dog's at- 

 tachment to Mr. Tom Parrington when he hunted the 

 pack was marvellous ; and when he broke his arm, 

 and sat down on a bank by a gate-post, waiting for a 

 chaise to take him home, George who had got the rest 

 of the pack away with great difficulty, was obliged to 

 leave Sparkler sitting beside him, and looking up 

 quite sorrowfully into his huntsman's face. He fol- 

 lowed the chaise on the road as far as the kennels, and 

 when it did not turn in there, but drove right on to 

 Hurworth, poor Sparkler could not make it out at all. 

 His argument was curt enough : my huntsman always 

 turns in there when we come back from hunting ; he 

 hasn't done so ; therefore, he cannot be in that chaise 

 which I have been following. Hence, to the astonish- 

 ment of Will Danby, Sparkler felt for the line for a 

 few minutes in the kennel field, and then galloped 

 back a mile to the place of the accident once more. 

 George found him there that night ; and the poor dog's 

 joy when his huntsman spoke to him next day through 

 the peep-hole into the kennel, and more especially 

 when he was admitted to an interview in the feeding- 

 house, was quite overwhelming. Sparkler clave to 

 Mr. Parrington when he ceased to hunt the Hurworth, 

 and he now lies buried under the large Portugal laurel 

 in his garden at Normanby. 



But we must hie across the country to Aldborough, 

 to have a word with the " Nestor of Shorthorns." It 

 is more than half a century since Mr. Wetherell com- 

 menced with shorthorns on the farm near Pierce Bridge, 

 where he was born. The shorthorn fame of his native 

 county had been about coeval with his own birth in 

 1792, and long before he commenced his maiden herd 

 at Holm House in 1816, "the haughty southrons" had 

 learnt to regard Durham as a very Goshen of cream 

 and beef, and as holding a sort of charmed existence, 

 under such proverbially cold and weeping skies. Those 



