FOX-HUNTING TYPES 231 



better than the fastest tussle for first spear after the 

 grim, grey boar. You talk to him of scent ! Oh ! he 

 hopes with all his soul that there will be a good scent, 

 or, if they must go slow, that they will go over a 

 strongly enclosed country with as few gates as possible 

 in the line. 



Perhaps in the mind of the Master all such enthu- 

 siasts are labelled dangerous. They think nothing of 

 hounds or hunting, he reflects, so they do not antici- 

 pate the sudden turns, the abrupt checks that the man 

 who rides to hunt would almost instinctively have 

 apprehended. And such knowledge is never likely to 

 come to them till they begin to care for hounds and 

 the actual science of hunting. 



Not long ago I heard a huntsman exclaim, apropos 

 of one of the straightest of youthful pursuers : " I 

 ought to have slanged him, I know, but I hadn't the 

 heart to do so ; he is such a capital boy, and means no 

 harm. He comes out for his ride, and where hounds 

 go he intends to go too ! " 



When, however, the Man who Hunts to Ride carries 

 any jealousy into the field with him, he must at once 

 be labelled dangerous, and it»is hardly conceivable to 

 what lengths jealousy will carry some men when out 

 hunting. A farmer told me not long ago, when talking 

 of a certain notoriously jealous rider, that he saw him, 

 when well in front of the field at the time, ride bang 

 among the stooping pack at a sudden check and crack 

 his whip. They rode home together, and he asked the 

 jealous one what on earth possessed him to do such 

 a thing, and spoil the finish of a fine gallop in which 

 he had gone so well. " You needn't say anything about 



