356 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



Have you kept yourself fit without tlie aid of skates? If so, will you 

 tell me how you have done it ? Will you agree with me that the effort to 

 look them out becomes greater with advancing years, and the disinclination 

 to put them on more marked ; that it is fatal to give up this, dancing, and 

 other frivolities, if you would not lose all the elasticity, all the freshness of 

 youth at one fell swoop. Will you tell me if there is any single recreation — 

 golf not excepted — that preserves its freshness and pleasures so long as 

 the pursuit of the fox ; and which, if you are spared to old age, will not 

 cause you to repeat the words of the immortal Whyte Melville — 



" I have lived my life — I am nearly done — 

 I have played the game all round ; 

 But I freely admit that the best of my fun, 

 I owe it to horse and hound." 



Horse and hound ! What a theme for dissertation ! Of the horse, our 

 noble partner, I have already written in former Leaves. What are you 

 doing with yours to keep them fit ? What will they be like when you get 

 to work again ? Lucky if they come out sound ; still more fortimate if 

 they remain so for the rest of the season ; but they'll not if you push them 

 along immediately after the frost in a severe run. With the disappearance 

 of our last frost we had slow hunting runs, and got to work gradually ; but 

 it could easily have been different, and some of us, at least, might have 

 profited by the hints that lately appeared in the Field under the heading 

 of " Accidents in the Hunting Field." But is it an accident to ride a horse 

 out and bring on its acute accompanying symptoms, to my thinking only 

 indicative of sheer cruelty on the part of the rider ? The wide opened 

 nostrils, laboured breathing, the legs held apart like so many props, the 

 flank heaving violently, and an utter disinclination or ability to move. 

 One consolation to be drawn that only a generous horse with a heartless 

 rider will arrive at this stage. The cow-hearted horse will curl up long 

 before he has had enough, and fall into a walk of his own sweet will, and 

 stable arrived, will lick up every grain of corn in his manger. 



Hounds. How much we owe to them ! How little the majority of us 

 know about them. Further, how little we often trust them ; or surely we 

 should not be so ready to halloa and shout immediately a fox shows himself 

 in front of hounds, without giving them the chance of deciding for them- 

 selves whether it is their hunted one or not. 



Never halloa a fox when hounds are running is a maxim that cannot 

 be too often repeated. To start with, they are much too occupied with 

 their own sweet music, as they throw their tongues on a ravishing scent, 

 to hear us, and can certainly tell much better than we can whether it is 

 the himted fox or not. In support of this contention let me give two 

 brief illustrations. When our own huntsman Bailey, previous to Lord 

 Rookwood securing his invaluable services, was acting as first whip to 

 the Duke of Buccleuch's Hounds, he was one day suddenly called upon 

 (the huntsman being crippled by lumbago) to carry the horn. How well 

 he acquitted himself the sequel will show. Towards the end of what 

 had been a very good run, and when hounds were not more than a field 

 or two at the outside behind their quarry crossing a field of turnips, a 

 fresh fox jumped up right in front of them. What did Bailey do ? Did 

 he halloa and shout and cap them on ? Not he. What did he think ? 

 I'll tell you in his own words, sir : 



" I thought that it was all over, as I knew that I couldn't stop them. Well, they coursed 

 this fox in view right up to the boundary fence of the field, but to my surprise not a single 

 Hound (huntsmen always write Hounds with a capital II — I am not surprised at it) went 

 through that fence. The whole of them swung themselves round like a flock of pigeons, got 



