THE PACK. 259 



being exhausted, and to very few being in at the 

 finish, just as we find in accounts of runs to-day, 

 but pace is comparative, and one must bear in mind 

 the state of the country and also the class of horse 

 ridden at that period before one can accept the 

 statement that a run was fast. All hounds that run 

 away from horses are fast. There is unfortunately 

 no case in which it is possible to check the pace by 

 the clock over any defined distance. The time of 

 several runs is given, but the ground traversed is 

 not sufficiently accurately described to enable us to 

 make any trustworthy calculation. It must also be 

 remembered that many of these accounts refer to a 

 period when a great change was taking place in 

 English hunting, and Mr. Childe, of Kinlet Hall, 

 Shropshire, was setting a fashion in the matter of 

 pace, which is said to have often roused the ire of 

 Mr. Hugo Meynell, whose pack he followed. The 

 example of riding better bred horses and galloping 

 at the fences was speedily followed in the shires and 

 spread all over England, and hounds were every- 

 where bred for pace to enable them to hold their 

 own, but how early the effect of this innovation was 

 felt on Exmoor we cannot tell. Accounts of big 

 runs, both ancient and modern, must be taken cum 

 grano sails. An experience of over twenty years in 

 endeavouring faithfully to recount the runs of the 

 Devon and Somerset Staghounds in the Field has 

 convinced the writer of the extreme temptation there 

 is to exaggerate the merits of a real good run, which 



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