6 "HOUNDS, GENTLEMEN, PLEASE! " 



apt to press on to maintain our position when the 

 check does come. There are even evildoers who seize 

 the occasion to edge on, on either flank of hounds, 

 in deadly terror lest they lose their places, and 

 Robinson be defeated in his laudable endeavour to 

 cut down Snooks, who is a stranger. 



" Always anticipate a check " is an old and very 

 true axiom of the hunting-field that has been printed 

 before now, and if borne in mind will, perhaps, save 

 the possibility of doing any harm. But it is when 

 hounds check on a road that their difficulties and the 

 huntsman's troubles are at their worst, and when, I 

 am afraid, the field appear most heedless and igno- 

 rant; and if the carriage brigade appear at this 

 most critical moment and mingle with the hard riders 

 of the roads and those who have followed hounds 

 over the fields, the babble of conversation and the 

 sort of senseless involuntary movement of the crowd 

 often becomes very exasperating to the M.F.H. I 

 recollect once at such a check our Master, all eager- 

 ness and anxiety, and looking as if the cares of 

 Europe were on his brow, was holding his divided 

 pack, some in the field to his right, some to his left, 

 and so jogging carefully down the road, when 

 suddenly a hospitable dame in a commodious wag- 

 gonette came round the corner, charged past the 

 M.F.H., and pulled up as the field, who were follow- 

 ing the huntsman at a respectful distance, approached. 

 " Oh, I'm so glad you've stopped ! " she exclaimed 

 joyously; "I've lots to eat and drink here — how 

 hungry you must all be." A reply made by the late 

 Mr. Victor Roche on a somewhat similar occasion — 



