70 THE HUNTING FIELD 



pack ; however, to conclude my story, they were not 

 stopped until they ran the pony five miles, but without 

 any further damage to any of the party excepting 

 sowing the seeds of irrevocable wildness whenever an 

 opportunity might offer itself." 



All packs, however, must have a beginning, and 

 the following may afford consolation to Masters of 

 newly set up ones : — 



"There is an old story told," says Mr. Vyner, "of 

 the Beaufort hounds, when that pack was being first 

 formed many years ago. A new draft of hounds 

 which had arrived on the previous day were let out 

 into the paddock to be inspected, when they com- 

 menced running the crows, which frequently fly skim- 

 ming along close to the ground in windy weather ; 

 and, as the old kennelman who had the care of them 

 declared, that he believed they would have never been 

 stopped, if they had not, by the blessing of God, 

 changed for a jackass." 



But to the Whip— 



We oftener find a "tool" of a Whip than a "tool" 

 of a Huntsman — perhaps because they have not so 

 many opportunities of exposing themselves as Hunts- 

 men, or perhaps because Whip " tools " are blighted 

 in the flower of whipper-in-hood, and never have a 

 chance of blooming into Huntsmen. We have had a 

 letter from a friend, informing us that the "cake" of 

 a Huntsman is described, who used to exclaim in 

 bewilderment on coming up at a check, "Ah dear, 

 whichiver way can he have gone ? " — " which way do 

 you think he has gone, Mr. Brown?" — "which way 

 do you, Mr. Green ? " — had an ornament of a Whip, 

 who never by any chance rode over a fence, and the 

 genius having chased a hound to the confines of a 

 field would sit craning and cracking his whip, halloo- 

 ing, "Get away, hound! get away/" the hound, of 

 course, pursuing the same vagaries in the next field 

 as he had done in the one from which he had been 



