322 Saddle and Sirloin. 



once simply a flagon of honour, which the stewards 

 were supposed to present to the races, and it was 

 handed round full of mulled wine at the race ball. 

 It was then washed out, and the clerk of the course 

 went the circuit of the ball-room with it, and it was 



had a gala day of rejoicing when the first kennel stone was laid, and 

 "took wine" (a delicate expression for sitting the clock round) when 

 they signed the bills for payment. In fact, their hearts were so uplifted 

 with their currant-jelly prospects, that very shortly after the next season 

 began they scorned to see their Bill on foot, and met and passed another 

 resolution. It ran thus : — " Ordered — that Mr. Merryweather, of Ros- 

 sington, be employed to buy a good strong horse for the huntsman not 

 exceeding fifteen guineas in price ; that the huntsman shall not use the 

 horse from the ending to the beginning of the hunting season, and the 

 Corporation shall provide an agist for the horse for the summer season." 

 This purchase did not turn out well ; but they voted their agent half-a- 

 guinea for all that, and trusted to other eyes. They seem to have been 

 very frugal in these matters, and in 1 78 1 the hounds themselves did not 

 cost more than 14/. 4*. 3d. ; but, as they enjoyed a regular 5/. field-day 

 among the sheep the year before, the Corporate purse-strings may have 

 been seasonably tightened. These sheep -killers, by the bye, were 

 beagles, which came into favour in the 12th year (with a view to con- 

 ciliate the running and short-winded burgesses) ; and such was the 

 force of example, that, besides Sir Rowland Winn's and the Barmboro' 

 Grange dogs, which were prior to them in time, five other packs of 

 harriers soon hunted in the district. All was done well, and it was a 

 question whether the body looked more venerable and respectable, 

 starting with all their calvacade from East Laith Gate to quest among 

 the gorse bushes on the Moor, or marching to Church — the mayor sup- 

 ported by eight ex-mayors and three or four mayors expectant — on the 

 race Sunday, behind the pindar and the mace bearer. All the burgesses 

 liked the hunt, and the tradesmen who kept the hounds had many a 

 good hare in their pot. Poor "Bill Stag" began after a few years to 

 go down-hill. Like a degraded knight of old, his horse was taken 

 from him and his spurs chopped off ; but he followed the hounds and 

 Tom Bell on foot as long as his wilful brandy-and-water legs did not 

 refuse their office, and then he was found dead in his bed. After last- 

 ing just twenty years, the hounds were given up, and Mr. Wrightson, 

 who turned up his nose at them when he had the offer, established 

 what has proved the germ of the Badsworth Hunt, of whose first 

 huntsman, Frobisher, nothing is known, except that he "married 

 Widow Halliwell, the heaviest woman in Yorkshire." The hunt 

 was then opened with a concert of bugles in front of Cusworth 

 Hall, and as the sounds stole down the Don to St. Sepulchre's, 

 many an inhabitant thought with a pang of the departed glories of 

 their own Stag and 'Bell, or flung dull care and business to the winds 

 that day. 



