THE HARRIER. 



227 



by himself has been trying the most unlikely 

 hedgerows and sides of ditches. Surely he 

 is wrong ! And you are just going to touch 

 your horn and blow him in, when he whim- 

 pers. The whole pack as if by magic lift 

 their heads ; they listen ! He has spoken. 

 It is enough. They go to him with a rush — 

 they never question his right to be trusted. 

 Hounds are so wise, so loyal. You hear that 

 glad pouring forth of sound as they settle 

 down on the line once more, and you sit 

 down in your saddle and feel you are in for 

 a good ride. 



The sad side of hunting is when your best 

 hounds grow old, and others fill their places. 

 Take the case of a hound who has been a 

 leader for some long time. The days come 

 when he just cannot be first, and he 

 knows it. When he realises this, he speaks, 

 hoping the others will still listen, but an- 

 other has spoken ahead of him, and they 

 know that Marksman is no longer their 

 leader. Pathetic thought ! It came hard 

 to him at first to give place to others ; he 

 was always first in everything, in beauty of 

 form, in perfect breeding, in absolute know- 

 ledge of the way to hunt a hare under any 

 circumstances, whether on land or in water ; 

 for he could hunt a hare in a river like an 

 Otterhound. In the evening of his life if 

 the meet was near the kennels, he would 

 walk out and take up a central position on 

 ground where he knew they would hunt 



— it seemed as if he knew the run of every 

 hare — and there he would wait and watch 

 until he heard the voices of his beloved com- 

 rades coming nearer, and until they swept 

 past him in full cry. Occasionally the spirit 

 of the chase entered into him too strongly, 

 and he would try hard to follow a few yards ; 

 but he was too feeble to go far. And so he 

 would sit down again and wait once more for 

 their coming, and his patience was often 

 rewarded. He is at rest now, having spent 

 nearly fifteen years in this world, and no 

 better hound ever lived. 



If they are well looked after, Harriers will 

 often last eight seasons, and even longer. 



See that you have one or two good road 

 hounds in your pack. They are at all 

 times invaluable, because a hare is very fond 

 of running a road if beat, and without a 

 hound capable of taking a line on a road, you 

 would fare badly. 



I will only mention one thing more, and 

 that is, that from personal observation I am 

 inclined to think a hare must rather enjoy 

 the voice of hounds, because last year a 

 hare put her two leverets in the kitchen 

 garden (which is only a few yards away from 

 my kennels and kennel yard), coming, as is 

 the custom of hares, back to feed them in the 

 evening, and remaining in the daytime in 

 a field behind the kennel. So she heard the 

 hounds' voices continually, and apparently 

 preferred being near them. 



A MEET OF HARRIERS IN SUSSEX. 



