126 THE HUNTING FIELD 



more to the branch " Jehu " than the peculiar class of 

 servants under consideration. 



" Honesty, sobriety, and civility " are the cardinal 

 qualities inquired after in character; but there is 

 another very important one, especially in a Hunting 

 Groom, " punctuality," that should never be lost sight 

 of. Want of punctuality counterbalances almost every 

 good quality. Half an hour — nay, five minutes — is 

 sometimes everything in a hunting morning. Fancy 

 a man coming twenty miles to meet hounds, and his 

 horse arriving five minutes after the last craner has 

 taken the distant fence, the panting hack sobbing as 

 the master sits straining his eye-balls — now after the 

 hounds, now in vain research about the country. If 

 any one were to put the following query to us : — 



" Would a master, whose Groom was late with his 

 horse, and so lost him ' the run of the season,' be justi- 

 fied in quilting him ? " 



We should answer — 



"Most decidedly yes — lay into the warmint!" 



Perhaps we might add — 



"Beware that he's not too big" 



Want of punctuality attaches to both ends of the 

 morning start. There is the want of punctuality in 

 getting away from home, which entails hurrying on 

 the road, and is more common than the want of 

 punctuality in arriving at the meet. A fellow who 

 can't get out of his bed of a morning is only fit to sit 

 in feathered breeches and hatch eggs. Somebody said 

 of a once prime minister, that he always seemed as if 

 he had lost half an hour in the morning, and was 

 running after it all the rest of the day ; and assuredly 

 there is nothing so annoying as a servant, who, for 

 the want of the early half hour, hurries and jumbles 

 the work of two hours into one. 



To a punctual person there is something strangely 

 self-speaking, evident, and significant in the move- 

 ments and appearances of an unpunctual, dilatory, 



