Hunting with Hounds 197 



jogging over behind the hounds to the ap 

 pointed place, where they were met by the 

 men who had ridden over direct from their 

 country-houses. If the meet was an impor 

 tant one, there might be a crowd of onlookers 

 in every kind of trap, from a four-in-hand 

 drag to a spider-wheeled buggy drawn by a 

 pair of long-tailed trotters, the money value 

 of which many times surpassed that of the two 

 best hunters in the whole field. Now and 

 then a breakfast would be given the hunt at 

 some country-house, when the whole day was 

 devoted to the sport; perhaps after wild 

 foxes in the morning, with a drag in the 

 afternoon. 



After one meet, at Sagamore Hill, I had the 

 curiosity to go on foot over the course we had 

 taken, measuring the jumps; for it is very dif 

 ficult to form a good estimate of a fence s 

 height when in the field, and five feet of tim 

 ber seems a much easier thing to take when 

 sitting around the fire after dinner than it 

 does when actually faced while the hounds 

 are running. On the particular hunt in ques 

 tion we ran about ten miles, at a rattling pace, 

 with only two checks, crossing somewhat more 

 than sixty fences, most of them post-and-rails, 

 stiff as steel, the others being of the kind called 



