218 FOX-HUNTING TYPES 



clever cob or good family horse, who seldom fails to 

 put in an appearance at the covert-side. He has 

 had quite the best of us all even thus early in the 

 day ; his perfect-actioned steed has given him no 

 annoyance on the way from the meet by undue fresh- 

 ness ; there has been no boring at the rein, no excit- 

 able curvetting. Therefore, with unruffled demeanour 

 he has been able to hold pleasant converse with his 

 friends, nor when the covert is reached does he allow 

 any consideration of what lies in the immediate 

 future to disturb his equanimity or interfere with his 

 real pleasure in seeing hounds try for their fox. 



He knows the reason why young Rapid grows 

 silent and preoccupied when the deep, sonorous note 

 of old Rummager proclaims that the thief of the 

 world is afoot, and why he sidles along up the fence 

 towards the narrow hunting-gate ; but the selfish 

 anxiety for a start, and mad hustle and jostle to 

 get well away, are things of the past for our 

 Senior, His anxiety now is that the fox shall get a 

 chance, and the hounds get well away, so that we 

 all may have our fun, each in the manner it pleaseth 

 him best. Not for him now the eager emulation to 

 drop into the front rank and stay there, " good 

 fellows to right and left of him, but not a soul 

 between himself and the hounds," he has done it in 

 his day, and now he appreciates the ecstatic pleasure 

 of his successors, and likes, if he can, to watch them 

 play the game. 



He can say with Charles Kingsley in his famous 

 " Concert in a Pine Wood " — the best bit of hunting 

 that ever was penned : " Let it suffice that I have 



