RIDING TO HOUNDS 29 



more or less shaken or broken, so that the last man who comes 

 hustling and ' Come-uping ' in the rear is actually, though all 

 unwittingly, attempting a greater feat than any of his pre- 

 cursors. 



Vain words ! Whatever may be said, the majority of every 

 field of horsemen will go stringing after each other over a 

 country, and if they find pleasure or profit therein who shall 

 upbraid them ? 



There is yet another section of pursuers which deserves 

 special notice to wit, the cunning men of the hunt, the riders 

 to points and to fox, rather than to hounds, though they would 

 be mortally offended at being told they did not ride to hounds, 

 arguing that, as they are during a great part of every run guided 

 by ear, the cry of the hounds is to them what the sight of the 

 fleeting forms is to the more ambitious competitors. The late 

 Earl Fitzhardinge was wont contemptuously to summarise 

 them as 'wind-sinking beggars from the West ;' his autocratic 

 Lordship being of opinion that the Berkeley Hunt was the 

 1 Ultima Thule ' of legitimate sport in the direction of the set- 

 ting sun, and he vaguely believed that all ' wind-sinkers ' came 

 out of Devonshire or Cornwall, and being outside the pale, 

 were unworthy of his august countenance- not that he himself 

 was by any means a straight goer, or one who could afford to 

 despise the advantage of being down wind, as in his later years, 

 when deafness was growing upon him, he was followed by an 

 attendant known as ' my Lord's hearer.' Some such dialogue 

 as this was of daily occurrence when the pair were thrown out : 



' D'ye hear 'em ? ' { No, my Lord.' ' D d fool you must be/ 



A pause. 'I hear 'em now, my Lord ' (allegro). 'So do I, you 

 d d fool ' (staccato). 



As a matter of fact, the point riders are for the most part 

 men bred and born or ascripti gleba in the county over which 

 they pursue, numbering many of the oldest inhabitants in their 

 ranks, knowing every yard of the ground, and as the season 

 progresses, getting almost on speaking terms with a fox which 

 has given them two or three gallops. Sometimes they recognise 



