The Life of a Great Sportsman 



their initiation with the blood instinct of fine breeding, and 

 bowl over many a lusty cub, thereby, if they are lucky, earning 

 a succulent morsel of a tender young Reynard, and show- 

 ing the huntsman who has watched over them from their birth 

 that they may become not only worthy successors of their 

 noted Brocklesby ancestors, but may even aspire to a glorious 

 rivalry in vulpine successes. 



Then, when cub-hunting merges into the real thing, after 

 long days out with the hounds — and they were long days indeed 

 at that time, for we always rode to the meets, however wide — 

 and as it was a point of honour with us never to come home 

 before hounds knocked off, it was often nightfall before we 

 came back, having started at 9.30 a.m. And then what quiet 

 happy evenings we had in the old home ! 



When our little house-party met at dinner, the run of the 

 day was lived over again ; the fences negotiated in spirit ; the 

 whoo-a-whoop, that told of a gallant fox being bowled over, 

 would ring again in our ears, and the sport, so well described by 

 Mr. Jorrocks as carrying with it all the excitement of war with 

 only a certain percentage of its dangers, would seem to us for 

 the hundredth time, at least, the one thing to be lived for and 

 enjoyed. 



No dinners ever passed off more pleasantly, as none knew 

 better than myself, I being the purveyor of the feast. For 

 although I had no grand chef, nor were our dinners dis- 

 tinguished by any special dishes of superior flavour, the homely 

 mutton (we killed our own sheep) and the well-roasted joints of 

 beef, to appetites sharpened by healthy exercise, never put me 

 off my feed, as the saying is, through natural anxiety as the 

 hostess. But one can scarcely take credit for good cooking 

 when a hunting man's appetite is to be satisfied, for, in the well- 

 considered opinion of a devotee of the sport, we know that 



76 



