INFLUENCE OF FIELD SPORTS ON CHARACTER. 99 



attention to those of his neighbour. If you seek advice or aid 

 you will not get much from the really zealous sportsman ; you 

 must trust to yourself, you must depend on your own resources. 

 ' Go on, sir, or else let me come,' is the sort of encouragement 

 which you are likely to get, if in doubt whether a fence is prac- 

 ticable or a turn correct. 



Thirdly, fox-hunting necessitates a combination of judgment 

 and courage removed from timidity on the one side and fool- 

 hardiness on the other. The man who takes his horse con- 

 tinually over big places, for the sake of doing that in which he 

 hopes no one else will successfully imitate him, is sure in the end 

 to kill his horse or lose his chance of seeing the run ; and on the 

 other hand, he who, when the hounds are running, shirks an 

 awkward fence or leaves his straight course to look for a gate, is 

 tolerably certain to find himself several fields behind at the finish. 



' What sort of a man to hounds is Lord A ?' we once heard 



it asked of a good judge. ' O, a capital sportsman and rider, 

 was the answer ; ' never larks, but will ^o at a haystack if the 

 hounds are running.' 



It is partly from the necessity of self-dependence which the 

 fox-hunter feels, that his sport is open to the accusation that it 

 tends to selfishness. The true fox-hunter is alone in the midst 

 of the crowd ; he has his own interests solely at heart — each for 

 himself, is his motto, and the pace is often too good for him to 

 stop and help a neighbour in a ditch, or catch a friend's runaway 

 horse. He has no partner, he plays no one's hand except his 

 own. This of course only applies to the man who goes out 

 hunting, eager to have a run, and keen to be in at the death. 

 If a man rides to the meet with a pretty cousin, and pilots her 

 for the first part of a run, he probably pays more attention to 

 his charge than to his own instincts of the chase ; but he is not 

 on this occasion purely fox-hunting ; and, if a true Nimrod, his 

 passion for sport will overcome his gallantry, and he will proba- 

 bly not be sorry when his charge has left his protection, and he 

 is free to ride where his individual wishes and the exigencies of 

 hunt may lead him. 



What a knowledge of country fox-hunting teaches ! A man 

 who hunts will, at an emergency, be far better able than one who 

 does not to choose a course, and select a line, which will lead 

 him right. Kinglake holds that the topographical instinct of 

 the fox-hunter is of considerable advantage in the battle-field ; 

 and it is undoubtedly easy to imagine circumstances in which a 



