"HOUNDS, GENTLEMEN, PLEASE! " 17 



begin to " see red." There is no need for dalliance 

 on these occasions. Pick your place in the first fence, 

 sit down in your saddle, keep his head straight, and 

 away with you ! But such flying starts, such burning 

 scents from covert, are exceptions and not the rule. 



"Never be close to hounds for the first two fields, 

 and we'll maybe show you a run," was a speech of 

 one of the best of amateur huntsmen, Mr. Henry 

 Briscoe, Master of the Curraghmore Hounds, who 

 knew as much about fox-hunting as most men. What 

 huntsman is there who would not like to feel him- 

 self entirely alone with his hounds for the first few 

 minutes — with the knowledge that his active and 

 capable first whipper-in was lying handy with eyes 

 skinned and ears alert, and that every horse behind 

 him but the whip's had a pair of hobbles on his 

 forelegs ? 



Hunting pictures, hunting songs, and most of the 

 imaginary runs in sporting novels are all to blame 

 for establishing the notion in the mind of aspiring 

 youth that a fox-hunt invariably begins, or ought to 

 begin, by hounds coming tearing out on the line of 

 their fox and immediately beginning to race him, while 

 the field at once sweep on like an avalanche in their 

 tracks. " Nimrod " was the first offender with the pen, 

 Aiken with the brush ; and as time went on our old 

 hunting songs of the " southerly wind and cloudy sky " 

 type were succeeded by others which had caught the 

 taint of pace and hurry. Even such true poets and 

 sportsmen as Charles Kingsley and Why te-Melville pipe 

 to the same tune of pace and hurry, and seizing the 

 most stirring and romantic side of the picture, urge 



Hounds, Gentlemen, Please. 3 



