CHAPTER II 



ON GOING TO COVERT: MERITS AND DEMERITS OF 

 THE MOTOR-CAR 



" Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that I felt in days of yore, 

 When my horse went on before me, and my hack was at the door ! " 



Had Mr. Bromley-Davenport written in the twentieth 

 instead of the nineteenth century, he mvist, I suppose, 

 have substituted the word " car " for " hack " ; for 

 where, alas ! is the covert-hack whose paces and 

 performances were the delight of an earlier genera- 

 tion of fox-hunters ? Not many years ago every 

 large hunting stable held, as a matter of course, its 

 complement of covert-hacks — animals that were at no 

 time easy to obtain ; looks, manners, and the best of 

 action in all paces being sought ; while his value 

 was enhanced if the hack possessed the knack of 

 jumping any ordinary fence in good style, for there 

 never has been a time when youthful sportsmen 

 could resist the temptation of a short-cut across 

 country. 



The pleasures of the ride to covert on such an 

 animal have been told in eloquent prose by many a 

 writer, and when Whyte-Melville descanted on the 



SI 



