That last line calls us back to the man who has carried on, to a century's ending, the Mastership of the pack his father gave him in charge.
A NORTH COUNTRY NIMROD.
As a lad of 18, John Crozier was already well known as a keen sportsman, as good with his rod in the becks and rivers here about, as he was with his father's hounds, and fond of wrestling as he was of hunting. At that day the pack numbered only six couples. They were kept at the farms all through the year, and were trained to meet at the sound of the Master's horn. The old Squire would often tell how he would stand on Kiln Hill, blow a blast, and watch the beauties racing across the meadows to his call. John Peel, in those days, was still hunting on the other side of Skiddaw, and John Crozier remembered the last time he saw him was under Wanthwaite Crags, where, after a long day's run, he invited the old veteran, who was on his white pony, to come home to supper. 'Nay, nay, John,' said Peel, 'I'se freetened o' gettin' neeted (benighted),' and so went back on his way to Ruthwaite supperless. 'But I'll see thee again,' he added—who knows they may again have met.
The first thing the young Master did was to improve the breed of his hounds, and this he accomplished by getting a strain from John Peel's kennels. How much of Ruby, 'Ranter, Royal, and Bellman, so true,' spoken of in the song, still runs in the blood of the Blencathra pack, I know not. Other strains since then have been introduced, but a hardier pack never breasted a mountain side, and there is not one of them who would not carry on the line himself, if his fellows failed, to the death.
John Crozier once received the following note: 'To J. Crozier, Esq., M.F.H., from Isaac and Edward Brownrigg, of Brownrigg. This hound (Darling) brought a splendid dog-fox, and after a very exciting hunt ultimately caught it in our house field. About an hour afterwards other five dogs came. After being fed they left, but this one would not leave. We intend having the fox preserved.' After carrying on the hounds at his own cost for 30 years, 'the Squire,' as he was always called, at the request of his neighbours, allowed them to become a subscription pack, in the year 1870. There was a general feeling in the dales that it was not fair to allow all the burden to be upon one man, and on the conditions that he would remain Master, and in case of the hunt ceasing, the hounds should be returned to him. A treasurer and secretary were appointed, and the Blencathra Hunt went on merrily as before.
The Master was fortunate in his huntsmen. Joseph Fearon, of honoured memory, was succeeded by Isaac Todhunter, who carried the horn for 25 years. Isaac Todhunter handed it on to John Porter, who for a like time kept up the best traditions of the pack, which Jem Dalton carries on to-day. The names of these past huntsmen, with other members of the hunt, are inscribed on the stone of memorial raised in the Threlkeld Churchyard at the charges of the Squire and a few friends; and that pillar in the King's dale—for of this dale John Crozier was truly king—if it does nothing else, goes to prove that the following of the foxes in the Lake District adds years, even as it adds cheer, to the lives of the dalesmen. Thus, for example, one sees that many of the hunters were fourscore years before they were run to earth; one was 89, another 91, another 95, and a fourth 98.
Up till the past two years the old Master of the hunt presided at the annual hunt dinner, but it was known that his health was failing, and though each week up to the end he kept in touch with all the doings of his pack, he did not leave his house. Still week by week members of the hunt would go up and have a 'crack' with him—always to be received with the same courteous inquiry, 'Well, how about your wives and families, are they well? That's right. Is any news stirring? What about the House last night?' He took the keenest interest in politics up to the end, and that came, not unexpectedly, at two o'clock on a quiet starlit morning, Thursday, 5th March, 1903.