bearbait

Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the grave and certainly severe study to which Elizabeth had habituated herself, than the vain and fantastic puerility of many of her recreations and habits, the unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she admired, or the gaudy and glittering pageants in which she delighted?

I went first this morning to the carcass of the bison we had killed for bearbait ; I found a bear had been there, and had already had his breakfast.

The worst ones for straying, curiously enough, were three broken-down old “bearbaits,” which went by themselves, as is generally the case with the cast-off horses of a herd.