68 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



to draw together a community, though to a certain extent they 

 may attract individuals. Melton has a dozen hunting boxes to 

 let, though quite an average number of men have been flitting: 

 backwards and forwards to the hotels — and these hunting 

 boxes, if they ever recoup their sanguine owners at all, will 

 probably have to do so through the medium of the town's- 

 increased commercial rather than sporting prosperity. But if 

 Melton falls short of what it was, Market Harboro' shows a 

 deficiency still more marked. Oakham has grown more 

 popular, and Grantham in no degree depreciated ; but both 

 these have to go outside the town walls for most of their 

 society. Rugby, again, is a come-and-go quarter making no- 

 world of its own ; and the same may be said of Weedon or any 

 other town you may name, where foxhunting constitutes the 

 sole object of visitors or settlers. And yet the hunting-fields 

 of the Shires show no attenuation. On the contrary, they are 

 lustier, and more redolent of life and money, every year. 

 Whence then does everybody come ? The explanation seems 

 to me to point in the direction of increased domesticity on the 

 part of the present generation. They are no less fond of 

 hunting ; but they are more attached to their own hearth. 

 Perhaps they marry younger, and have been brought up on 

 improved lines ? As a matter of fact, they prefer to establish 

 their Lares and Penates in a tamely way where there exists 

 just one fellow-sportsman with whom to jog home at night, 

 where chickens and an Alderney cow are the most exciting 

 channels of dissipation, and where the grey-haired rector 

 is the riskiest of company within hail. Has Melton ever 

 done anything that it should be thus comparatively ostra- 

 cised ? And how is it that such a change has come over 

 the method of men and women that now each hamlet has a 

 dove's nest, while the big pigeoncote of former days is well-nigh 

 empty. 



Ah, there is comfort in hunting from home, luxury in un- 

 trammelled hours, and freedom in following your own bent, 

 that, though tending possibly to selfishness and leading to old- 



