THE FITZWILLIAM 323 



hour's hunt in a terrific gale, and probably in their 

 very worst country. But when you can scarcely help 

 being blown out of the saddle you cannot really enjoy 

 a hunt. As I have owned to never having dropped in 

 for a good day with Mr Fitzwilliam, it may seem pre- 

 sumptuous of me to say that for real enjoyment you 

 must hunt with him on an indifferent scenting one. 

 But what I mean is this : any hounds, as Beckford 

 says, can drive on a good scent, so that, even if you 

 see the Milton bitches "screaming" a fox to death in 

 under half an hour, you'll only see (and you'll have 

 to be well mounted and a "customer" to be near 

 enough to see anything) what you can see, 

 more or less, w4th every other pack in the Shires 

 and — low be it breathed — in a more pleasant riding 

 country. 



But on a poor-scenting day, to see the Fitzwilliam 

 come away from one of the interminable woodlands in 

 the north of their country ivith their hackles iip^ and 

 commence to run solemnly and doggedly, hunting at 

 times over the " goose to a square mile " white grasses, 

 or the equally bad-scenting stone-walled ploughs south 

 of Stamford town, at a pace that you need hardly do 

 more than trot to live with, and then driving away, as 

 the scenting conditions improve, forcing their fox for a 

 couple of miles through woodland, and pressing him at 

 last across some better land, till they break him up 

 with a sort of solemn satisfied look which seems to 

 imply that they had not their hackles up for nothing 

 an hour before. 



Surely Whyte-Melville had — the remark is as far as 

 I am concerned original, but of course it may have 

 been made in print before, — surely when the master- 

 hand traced the lively description of the Castle 



