HUNTING IN THE SNOW 



CHAPTER XXVII 



IN an ordinary enclosed hunting country, the 

 advent of snow conjures up visions of 

 horses with ' ' balled " feet, slipping and 

 slithering all over the roads, or else eating their 

 heads off in the stables ; while their masters tap 

 the glass, and anathematise the vagaries of our 

 changeable climate. 



We who hunt on the fells, however, have no 

 such misgivings, for unless the snow is very deep, 

 or the crags heavily ice-bound, hounds can get 

 through it all right, although following them on 

 Shanks' s Pony is a more or less laborious under- 

 taking. As Jorrocks says : ' * 'Unting is all 

 that's worth living for. All time is lost wot is not 

 spent in 'unting. It's like the hair we breathe — 

 if we 'ave it not we die " ; so snow or no snow, we 

 generally have a go at it. 



Hunting under such conditions, the odds are all 

 in favour of the hounds, for the fox is short-legged 

 in comparison, and he makes " heavy weather " 

 of it as he ploughs through the soft white drifts. 

 It is then that reynard learns to travel the wall- 

 tops when the icy blast has blown them clear of 

 snow, and having learnt it, he often adopts the 

 same means of locomotion again, when the 

 ground is bare. This running of wall-tops is a 

 trick that always slows the hounds, for scent is 

 too far above them to reach it from the ground, 

 the consequence is they jump up and go in single 



274 



