138 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



nished as when they left the stable; horses with 

 glossy coats, riders upright and fatigueless, dogs 

 clean, and not a sign of poaching on the turf. The 

 dogs are coming out of the water with their tails up 

 and straight dogs as they trail their flanks out of a 

 brook always, in fact, droop their tails, while their 

 bodies look smaller and the curves project, because the 

 water lays the hair flat to the body till several shakes 

 send it out again. Not a speck on a top-boot, not a 

 coat torn by a thorn, and the horses as plump as if 

 fresh from their mangers, instead of having worked 

 it down. Not a fleck of foam ; the sun too shining, 

 and yet no shadow all glaring. And, despite of all, 

 deeply interesting to those who know the countryside 

 and have a feeling knowledge of its hunting history. 



For the horses are from life, and the men portraits ; 

 the very hedges and brooks faithful in ground-plan, 

 at least. The costume is true to a thread, and all the 

 names of the riders and some of the hounds are written 

 underneath. So that a hunter sees not the crude 

 colour or faulty drawing, but what it is intended to 

 represent. Under its harshness there is the poetry of 

 life. But looking at these pictures, the reflection will 

 still arise how few really truthful hunting scenes we 

 have on canvas in this the country of hunting. The best 

 are so conventional, and have too much colour. All 

 nature in the season is toned down and subdued the 

 gleaming red and bright yellows of the early autumn 

 leaves soaked and soddened to a dull brown ; the 

 sky dark and louring if it is bright there is frost; 



