58 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



much payment as lawyers before they do anything. 

 With these it must necessarily be not only a word, but 

 " a word and a blow, and the blow first ;" but nothing 

 annoys me more than to see a cut made at a hound, in 

 the midst of others guiltless of the cause. It is ten to 

 one but the lash, intended for Vagabond or Guilty, will 

 descend upon Manager or Blameless, and render others 

 shy, to no purpose. The difficulty consists in contriv- 

 ing to awe the resolute, without breaking the spirit of 

 the timid. One of the best hounds I ever saw had been 

 so completely cowed in Leicestershire, that he was use- 

 less till he had changed his owner and country. I have 

 said enough to prove that the task of a whipper-in is not 

 one that can be achieved by every groom who can ride 

 and crack a whip, but that, fike every branch of the 

 science, it is regulated upon certain principles. His 

 part in the campaign may be designated as that of an 

 active and zealous partisan. He must exercise his judg- 

 ment when left to his own discretion, but to all com- 

 mands from master or huntsman he must yield blind 

 obedience. Prompt only in execution of orders, he must 

 think as little of stopping hounds, or taking them, as it 

 may seem to him, fro}}i their fox, as a soldier would hesi- 

 tate to storm a fort, by order of his superior, which he 

 might know to be impregnable. There is a maxim in 

 the army that no one under the rank of a field officer 



