FOX-HUNTING TYPES 233 



along ! That's right ! Kill all the hounds, and break 

 your own blessed neck ! Then we'll have no more 

 fox-hunting and no Liberal Member for Blankshire ! " 

 The hard rider whom I mentioned above as riding 

 hounds off the line was a corn merchant, and the late 

 Captain Algernon Moreton, who used to regale me 

 when a boy with stories of Lord Fitzhardinge (Sir 

 Maurice Berkeley) and his huntsman, Harry Ayris, 

 said that the sharpest thorn in the old sailor's side 

 was a hatter from Gloucester who was slightly hump- 

 backed, and upon whom the choicest flowers of the 

 noble M.F.H.'s nautical vocabulary were freely 

 sprinkled. 



In strong contrast with the man who rides hard 

 across country for riding's sake must be placed the 

 Man who Rides to Hunt — the man who sets out in 

 the morning intent on seeing hounds find their fox 

 and hunt him, and on obtaining as good a view of 

 the performance as the animal he bestrides will enable 

 him to do. His pleasures and anxieties, which give 

 zest to the pleasures, begin early in the day ; nay, may 

 we not say that they began the night before ? For he 

 is a thorough devotee of the chase, and would never 

 dream of going to bed without taking " a look at the 

 night," setting the barometer, and giving it a final tap. 



When wakened in the morning he is all anxious for 

 a peep out of the window to see if it is a hunting day, 

 and betrays a certain amount of fussiness till home 

 is left behind and he is fairly under way for the meet. 

 He would not be late for any consideration whatever. 

 When he arrives he is keen to^get a look at the hounds, 



