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 



