THE HUNTSMAN 129 



and I suppose by that he means a man should 

 begin early ; but unfortunately there is no way 

 of remaining young, and I don't imagine he would 

 have advised getting rid of a man because he had 

 lost his first youth. Wisdom comes with age, 

 and the majority of huntsmen have lost their dash 

 by the time they are ready to profit by their own 

 experience. The young man who is full of nerve 

 and keenness is likely to show sport with a good 

 pack of hounds, even if he knows nothing about 

 the game. 



There are few men who do not begin to lose 

 some of their nerve when they have passed forty ; 

 but, of course, there are exceptions, and the only 

 huntsman I ever knew who retained his riding to 

 the end was Tom Firr. At the age of fifty-eight, 

 in his last season with the Quorn, he was riding to 

 hounds in as brilliant a fashion as when he first 

 joined the pack five-and-twenty years before. 

 How much longer he would have continued to 

 ride over Leicestershire, had he not met with 

 the accident which laid him on the shelf, it is of 

 course impossible to say. 



Future ages may produce huntsmen as good 

 as Tom Firr, but we of his generation can never 



I 



