Both men had won the hearts of the simple people far and near, and ages after he is laid in earth, as he will be laid by the side of his beloved wife, in the Threlkeld Churchyard, men will speak of 't'ald Squire,' and enthusiastically tell of his hunting feats, and remember how he loved his native village. The love of hunting which John Crozier inherited from his father, who lived at Gate Ghyll Farm on Blencathra's side, and who {193} turned over to his son the mastership of what were then spoken of as 'the Threlkeld dogs' in the year 1840, is a passion with our dales' folk which only those who live amongst them can understand. The 'varmint' is the natural enemy of the shepherd, and this adds zest to the day's sport. In our churchwardens' accounts of old time there appears the item 'A fox head, 21s.,' and though in other chapelries 3s. 4d. appears to have been the price paid, such a scourge must Reynard have become that the churchwardens felt they were justified in giving a whole week's wage for the destruction of one fox. Down at Shoulthwaite and, for aught I know, in other dales a fox trap of masonry existed till of late years, built beehive fashion with a hole in the top. If Reynard ventured in to the bait, which was a fine fat hen, he was a prisoner; try to scale the walls how he might the artful one was foiled; but to trap a fox goes against the grain. There are certain things in which our hunt differs from others. Class distinctions are unknown in the field. The Master of the Hunt knows all by their Christian name. It is a social gathering from daylight to dark. The luxury of horses, too, is unknown. The {194} field are all running huntsmen of the type of old Timothy, of whom Wordsworth wrote, in the year 1800--the childless Timothy who took up his staff, and with the thought of his last child's death heavy upon him could nevertheless not refuse the invitation of 'the horn and the hark! hark-away,' and 'went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.' On that day when 'Skiddaw was glad with the cry of the hounds,' old Timothy's daughter Ellen had been dead five months or more, or he probably would not have followed the hunt, for there is a kind of etiquette that the hunters in the dales observe, and they would no more go a-hunting within a month after the death of their beloved, than they would miss going to church on the Sunday following the funeral. I remember once being asked by a widower, who was in great sorrow and could not get away from his thoughts, whether he should take what he knew to be the best physic--a day with the dogs. I asked, 'What would your wife have said?' His answer came quite straight: 'She wad hev clapped a bit o' lunch in my pocket, gi'en me ma staff, shut door upon me, and telt me not to show my feace until supper time.' I answered, 'That's enough,' and the man was a new {195} being when he returned from the hunt, more able to wrestle with his sorrows.