320 WHICH IS THE BEST 



day you have had. Farewell, perspiring and equally 

 pleased pedestrians. You have had your fun, your 

 whooping and holloaing, and a hard run ; and if you 

 have somewhat driven hounds off their heads at the 

 beginning of the day, the M.F.H. does not grudge 

 you your amusement, and no more should we. 



There are sandwiches now to eat, cigars to smoke, 

 and maybe a flask or two to be consulted during 

 four miles of jog-jogging along the hard high- 

 road before the gate of a field is opened and we turn 

 in. Two more fields, two more gates, then a line of 

 fir-trees on top of a gentle rise. The M.F.H. pulls 

 up ; a mounted farmer, on whose land we are stand- 

 ing, says : " Please tell the gentlemen not to make 

 a noise." The first whipper-in steals forward, and 

 we see him disappear round the fir-trees. They grow 

 just inside the cover-fence of a crack gorse which 

 harbours, as a rule, " the old customer " who has 

 three times defeated hounds. We advance on it now. 

 The second whipper-in is scuttling away to his old 

 corner ; the Master is bending forward, horn in hand, 

 in the act of waving his hounds into cover, when, loud 

 and shrill, a whistle rings out from the far side. A 

 twang of the horn, and, keeping well clear of the 

 fences, the M.F.H. with the pack at his horse's heels, 

 gallops on round the covert. Well in the centre of 

 the field beyond the gorse is the first whipper-in. 

 That functionary is purple in the face, screaming 

 vigorously, and scooping away with his cap. Hounds 

 fairly fly towards him. " Hold hard, all of you !" roars 

 the Master, turning short round upon us, and looking 

 as if he was going to eat the lot of us, — " Hold hard, 



