338 HUNTING, ANCIENT AND MODERN 



again, I do not see how this can be stated with any 

 certainty. In Whyte-Melville's Inside the Bar he 

 makes old Squire Plumtree, in an after-dinner argu- 

 ment, thus deliver himself : — 



" Haste is not always speed. A man may be in a devil of a hurry 

 and yet slip back two paces for every one he advances. The 

 same process that kills a hare will kill a fox — the keeping constantly 

 at him, not the bustling him along best pace for ten or fifteen 

 minutes. Now your hounds of the present day are always flashing 

 over the scent into the next field. Either you waste a deal of valuable 

 time by having to try back, or if your huntsman is as wild as his 

 hounds, he gallops forward blowing his horn, makes a wide cast, 

 and loses him altogether. Either way you destroy your own object." 



Those who have partaken of the delightful sport 

 furnished by the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, 

 and have participated in the pleasures of a run over 

 the glorious, open moorland will, I think, understand 

 the old Squire's meaning. You have acquired sufficient 

 confidence in yourself and steed to ride boldly through 

 the heather and moorland herbage, knee-deep though 

 it be. You have got away well and are placed, much 

 to your satisfaction, pretty close to hounds, and 

 you mean to stay there. At first it seems a matter 

 easy enough on a "well-bred horse, who is not taking 

 anything out of himself by pulling harder than is 

 pleasant ; for the pace even of those big hounds among 

 the heather seems nothing alarming. A fast canter 

 or steady hand-gallop, you think will suffice. But 

 there is no stopping on a good scenting day on the 

 moor, no pulling the horse together for a fence or 

 a halting to open the gate, no diverging into the next 

 field to get better going or to avoid the fence in front ; 



