The  jovial  sportsmen  of  the  Yorkshire  dales  drank  deep
and  swore  hard,  "abuses  never  practised  by  Sir  Thomas";
whilst  their  conversation  related  chiefly  to  the  doings
of  horse  and  hound,  "sports  whereunto  Sir  Thomas
never  applied  himself."

As  Sir  Thomas  showed  such  lamentable  lack  of  good
fellowship,  and  was,  moreover,  so  inclined  to  be  quarrel-
some, they  ridiculed  him  as  "the  little  Knight  that
useth  to  draw  up  his  breeches  with  a  shooing-horn,"1
and  reckoned  him  "one  of  the  cross  accidents  of
life."2

One  reason  for  his  unpopularity  arose  from  the  fadl:
that  he  was  a  Puritan,  one  of  those  cold-blooded  men
who  would  sing  "psalms  to  horn-pipes,"3  and  wanted
to  put  down  the  "sweet  and  comfortable"  sport  of
bear-baiting;  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but
because  it  gave  pleasure  to  the  spectator.  The  country
gentlemen  who,  in  rare  moments  of  reflection,  would
say,  "I  would  I  had  bestowed  that  time  in  the  tongues
that  I  have  in  fencing,   dancing,   and  bear-baiting,"4

1  James  Howell's  Familiar  Letters.
2  Memoirs  of  Sir  Hugh  Cholmley.
8  The  Winter's  Tale,  iv,  2.
4  Twelfth  Night,  i,  3.
