134 RADNOR REMINISCENCES 



peace-times; and even though familiarity is supposed to 

 breed contempt, I'll wager not one foxhunter that was in 

 the service has anything but the greatest respect and ad- 

 miration for the noble beasts that carried him and worked 

 for him during his army career. 



It's quite true, most of them were not hunters, and very 

 few of them could have been made into hunters, but they 

 gave one a ride whenever one asked, and never groused 

 about it. But it was nice to come back and get on your own 

 old favorite again, was n't it? — even if he did have a big 

 hay belly, after having been at grass for eighteen months 

 or two years, and grunted and groaned when you first tried 

 him in canter? Nothing you had between your knees in 

 the army felt quite like him, did it? You patted his neck a 

 good half-dozen times that first ride, and probably, if you 

 were riding alone, talked to him and told him a lot of things 

 that you have n't even told your wife yet; and was n't the 

 old fellow glad to have you on his back again? Of course 

 he was. He knew it meant hunting again for him, and 

 where is the horse, hound, or man who is n't glad to get 

 back into that game once more? 



Although cubbing was a bit late in starting, and, even if 

 there was no young entry in the kennels to watch, there 

 was that same thrill and excitement this morning when 

 hounds went out for the first time. It was a typical cub- 

 bing morning, inky black and raining a bit, when my horse 

 was brought to the door at five-thirty. Then in a minute 

 it poured in torrents and I jogged into the carriage house 

 and waited a bit, thereby losing several valuable min- 

 utes, but finally arriving at the Happy Creek barn just 

 as hounds were moving off. 



How natural it all seemed again; the same smiling faces; 

 the same hounds, only not so many of them, and mostly 



