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of his horse than his hounds. On one occasion both he 

 and his field lost the pack entirely through jealousy, and 

 were staring about on the top of a hill to know where 

 we were gone ; at the time we were quietly eating our 

 fox in a hollow a mile behind them. Then the men 

 who come out on the grass are, many of them, a great 

 nuisance, and often have I been prevented making a hit 

 by fifty or sixty pounding up a green lane, and then, 

 seeing they had got too forward, pulling up in the very 

 spot the fox had crossed. In fact, I hardly know 

 which are the most tiresome to hounds, the hard riders 

 or the shirkers ; for one party drives them over the 

 scent, and the other cuts them ofi" and foils it. Again, 

 the danger to hounds in the grass countries is not to be 

 lightly estimated ; and if you think that one half the field 

 would alter their line at a fence because a hound was in 

 the way, you are very much mistaken. Then, half of 

 them are not so particular about the horses they ride as 

 every one who hunts ought to be, and I, in my first 

 season, was left for dead from a kick received from a 

 celebrated grey. Kick hounds or horses either he 

 would if he had the chance, and no doubt you will 

 wonder why his owner, who was really a good sports- 

 man, continued to ride him ; but he was the best water- 

 jumper in the hunt. I do not say, mind you, that there 

 are not first-rate sportsmen, and many of them, in the 

 shires — in fact, you would find more good sportsmen at a 

 meet there than anywhere: but they are so largely 

 leavened with those who are not sportsmen — men who 

 go out because it 's the fashion — men who go out to 

 show their horses, or their boots, or to ride against each 

 other — that it becomes, in the regular season, anything 

 but a paradise for hounds. 



" Why, I once knew a man gallop and halloa like a 

 maniac, to get us on to a fresh fox that jumped up from 



