326 HUNTING, ANCIENT AND MODERN 



a pack of tow-rowing brutes that couldn't go fast 

 enough to keep themselves warm," and, for his part, 

 he " wouldn't have been bothered with it." 



This, it is true, was after dinner, when the wheels 

 of conversation had been oiled, and, the ladies having 

 retired to bed, the talk, as usual, fell upon fox-hunting. 



" You say," pursued this twentieth-century philo- 

 sopher, "that it has always fascinated you to hear 

 the old Master relate how his father used to wait 

 with his hounds on the lee-side of a wild, heathery 

 hill for the day to break that he might drag up to 

 his fox, and you profess to find a spice of romance 

 and poetry in such an unchristianlike proceeding." 

 (Here I nodded and puffed away (^vigorously.) " That 

 seems to me awful rot, if you'll excuse my saying so," 

 went on this Philistine. " Where on earth did the 

 fun come in ? I suppose the old man got up about 

 four o'clock, pitch dark, on a cold winter's morning ; 

 shaved overnight, I suppose ; for they all shaved 

 then ; wore pigtails, too, I fancy ; dressed by candle- 

 light, no lamps in those days — I say ! think of the 

 misery of getting into breeches and a pair of tight 

 boots by candle-light ! " 



" They weren't such asses as to wear them tight 

 then," I growled. 



" Breakfasted by candle-light ! Ugh ! what a dismal 

 proceeding ! " he continued ; " and then jog-jogging 

 on in the black dark (sleet or rain, too, perhaps) for 

 miles over bad roads — and they must have been 

 pretty bad then ; with a cheery old wait under the 

 lee of your romantic hillside for an hour or so at the 

 end of it ! Not good enough, I call it ! " 



