58 



The Chase 



are brought to hunting now, and must feel for it 

 every yard they go. . . . 



Hounds are apt to be a little unsettled after so 

 rapid a burst as I have attempted to describe, and 

 it takes a few fields of persevering attention to 

 steady them again. After this, however, I think 

 we may have remarked they made but few mis- 

 takes, and a fox well rattled up to the first check, 

 huntsmen tell us, is as good as half killed. 



The description of a run is tedious to all but the 

 narrator. What good wine a man should give his 

 guests, who indulges in minute detail of every event 

 that happened ! — how they entered this spinney 

 and skirted that wood, and crossed the common, 

 and finally killed or lost or ran to ground, or other- 

 wise put an end to the proceedings of which the 

 reality is so engrossing and the account so tedious. 

 I have seen young men, longing to join the ladies 

 or pining to smoke cigars, forced to sit smothering 

 their yawns as they pretended to take an interest 

 in the hounds and the huntsman, and the country, 

 and their host's own doings, and that eternal black 

 mare. I can stand it well enough myself, with 

 a fair allowance of '41 or '44, by abstracting 

 my attention completely from the narrative, and 

 wandering in the realms of fancy cheered by the 

 blushing fluid. But everyone may not enjoy this 

 faculty, and you cannot, in common decency, go 

 fast asleep in your Amphitryon's face. Again, I 

 say, nothing but good wine will wash the infliction 

 down. Let him, then, whose port is new or whose 

 claret unsound, beware how he thus trespasses on 

 the forbearance of his guests. 



Of course they killed their fox. After the first 

 check they gradually took to hunting, and so to 

 running once more, Mr. Sawyer distinguishing him- 



