RIDING TO FOX-HOUNDS. 193 



"Young gentleman, nurse your hunter carefully at 

 the beginning of a run, and when the others are tired 

 he will enable you to see the end." 



Now with all due deference to the old sportsman, 

 I take leave to differ with him in toto. By nursing 

 one's horse, I conclude he meant riding him at less 

 than half-speed during that critical ten minutes when 

 hounds run their very hardest and straightest. If 

 we follow this cautious advice, who is to solve the 

 important question, " Which way are they gone ? " when 

 we canter anxiously up to a sign -post where four 

 roads meet, with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but 

 not the wildest notion towards which point of the 

 compass we should direct his energies ? We can but 

 stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman who 

 unwittingly puts us wrong, ride to points, speculate 

 on chances, and make up our minds never to be really 

 on terms with them again ! 



No, I think on the contrary, the best and most 

 experienced riders adopt a very different system. On 

 the earliest intimation that hounds are "away," they 

 may be observed getting after them with all the speed 

 they can make. Who ever saw Mr. Portman, for 

 instance, trotting across the first field when his bitches 

 were well out of covert settling on the line of their 



o 



