THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



caught in the hedgerows, or anywhere out of 

 covert, but fairly knocked off their legs in the 

 open field." 



Thus came to an end the Duke's three seasons of 

 hunting. Before the next season he appointed 

 Thomas Clark to be huntsman. The Duke, as 

 we have seen, learned hunting under William 

 Long, and Long belonged to that school of hunts- 

 men who desire to kill the fox they find, and 

 whose aim it is to prevent hounds from changing 

 in the course of a run. That hounds can learn 

 this, the French professors of the art of venerie 

 tell us. The Duke considered that his hounds 

 had the quality of holding to the line of their 

 quarry in a remarkable degree. 



Thomas Clark, however, had no ideas of this 

 kind, albeit he was a good man in the kennel and 

 showed excellent sport. I imagine that Clark 

 was very popular with the hard- riding members 

 of the field, for he was ever keen for a gallop. 

 He would take hounds off a hunted fox in 

 covert, to cry them on to a fresh one that had 

 gone away over the open. He thought of the 

 run first, and of the hunt afterwards. This is but 

 natural in a huntsman whose livelihood and whose 

 reputation depend on the favour and the idle 

 tongues of the least thoughtful and careful of the 

 field. 



The precepts he had learned in the first instance 

 from Long, and his own long practice of them 



204 



