94 THE HUNTING FIELD 



amusing anecdote of what happened with the men 

 belonging to his pack : — 



" There can be but one opinion upon the vice of 

 drunkenness in any man," says he, " and the second 

 fault in either a Huntsman or Whipper-in ought to 

 be the last to be overlooked. Many of my readers 

 may, I have no doubt, been disgusted in the course 

 of their lives by such an outrage; but to see a 

 Whipper-in drunk on champagne would be rather a 

 novel sight. I remember once meeting at the house 

 of a jolly good foxhunter 'of the olden time,' who 

 shall be nameless, where he had a most splendid 

 breakfast upon the occasion ; and our worthy host, 

 not being content with giving his guests plenty of 

 that exhilarating beverage, absolutely sent a bottle 

 out to the men who were waiting with the hounds 

 upon the lawn : the result may be imagined. Upon 

 remonstrating with the elder of the two upon this 

 most disgraceful occurrence, the answer was, that he 

 was sorry for what had happened, but that he thought 

 there could be no harm in the contents of the bottle, 

 as he had seen a lady drinking some of the same kind 

 through the window just before." 



" This man," adds Mr. Vyner, " had but one fault 

 in the world; in other respects he was a most 

 excellent and trustworthy servant, and one of the 

 quickest and best sportsmen I ever saw handle a 

 whip ; he had lived twenty years in two of the most 

 noted hunting establishments in England, but gin 

 became his ruin." 



Drink is a thing that, sooner or later, shows itself 

 in all men, and, perhaps, in Huntsmen and Whips 

 sooner than in most, through the medium of the 

 voice. There is a huskiness about the voice of the 

 dram-drinker, far removed from the joyful, cheerful 

 note, of the sound, healthy-lunged, sober man; in- 

 deed, we sometimes fancy that men's voices sound 

 differently after a "lawn meet," to what they do at 



