90 TALES OF THE TURF AND THE CHASE. 



am happy to say that I know of a few more hke the Lion. They 

 are recognisable at a glance. You may tell them by the lack of 

 nineteenth century filagree decoration which characterises their 

 exterior, by the cut of the waiters, by the knowing look of the 

 boots. Snug are their coffee-rooms, luxurious their beds, genial 

 their whole atmospere. It is just possible that if you were to 

 take your wife to such an establishment as the Lion, she would 

 complain that an aroma of tobacco-smoke pervaded the atmo- 

 sphere. But the hunting hotel is conspicuously a bachelor's 

 house. Its proprietor, or proprietress, does not lay himself or 

 herself out for ladies and ladies' maids. It is their object to 

 make single gentlemen, and gentlemen who enjoy the tempo- 

 rary felicity of singleness, at home. If it is your first visit, you 

 are met in a manner which clearly intimates that you were 

 expected. If you are an old habitue yow find that all your wants 

 are anticipated, and all your peculiar fancies known. The waiter 

 understands exactly— marvellous is the memory of this race of 

 men — what you like for breakfast : whether you prefer a ' wet 

 dish ' or a ' dry :' and recollects to a nicety your particular idea 

 of a dinner. Under any circumstances a week's hunting is a 

 good and healthy recreation ; but it is difficult to enjoy a week's 

 hunting more perfectly than in one of these hostelries, which have 

 not, I rejoice to say, yet been swept away by the advancing tide 

 of modern improvement. 



Of whom did our company consist ? We were not a party 

 of Meltoniaii squires, such as it would have delighted the pen of 

 Niuirod to describe. We were neither Osbaldestones nor Sir 

 Harry Goodrickes : neither Myddelton Biddulphs nor Holyoakes. 

 A Warwickshire or an Oxfordshire hunting field differs very 

 materially, so far as regards its personnel, from a Leicester or a 

 Northamptonshire gathering. The latter still preserves the 

 memories and the traditions of a i^zst regime, when hunting was 

 confined to country gentlemen, farmers, and a few rich strangers : 

 the former is typical of the new order of things under which 

 hunting has ceased to be a class amusement, and has become a 

 generally popular sport. Now it is not too much to claim for 

 hunting at the present day this character. The composition of 

 the little band which on the morning now in question left the 

 Lion Hotel at Chipping Ongar, bound for cover, was no unim- 

 portant testimony to this fact. We were half a dozen in number, 

 and comprised among ourselves a barrister, a journalist, a doctor, 

 and a couple of Civil servants, who had allowed ourselves a 



