CHAPTER THIRTY FOX-HUNTING 



I 



HAVE very little to say on this most momentous 

 of all sporting subjects; and that little will, I fear, be 



sadly 



"Unmusical to Melton ears, 

 And harsh in sound to Quorne." 



But what are a set of poor fellows like us to do, living here 

 amongst mountains, and ravines, and torrents, and deep 

 water-courses, and morasses, against none of which the 

 best horse that ever put foot on turf could contend for five 

 minutes? It took me, I must confess, some time before I 

 could get over all the finer tone of my Leicestershire feel- 

 ings; and I have no doubt that I blushed a perfect scarlet 

 the first time that I doubled up a fox with a rifle-ball; but 

 now, rendered callous by use and necessity, I can do ex- 

 ecution upon him without a pang. 



In Scotland the fox holds the first place among "ver- 

 min." I do not think that a mountain-fox would live long 

 before a pack of regular fox-hounds, but in his own country 

 he is well able to take care of himself. He is a handsome 

 powerful fellow ; and in size and strength more like a wolf 

 than a Lowland fox, and well he may be, since his food con- 

 sists of mutton and lamb, grouse and venison. His strong- 

 hold is under some huge cairn, or among the fragments 

 that strew the bottom of some rocky precipice, perhaps 

 three thousand feet above the sea. In those mountain soli- 

 tudes he does not confine his depredations to the night; I 

 have often encountered him in broad daylight; and through 

 my deer-glass have watched his manner of hunting the 

 ptarmigan, which is not so neat, but appears quite as suc- 

 cessful, as the tactics of the cat. By an unobservant eye, the 

 383 



