190 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



ferring to risk the imputation of being slow, of giving a 

 short day, and going home too early. It never was 

 my misfortune to witness a sham draw, for the sake of 

 spinning out the day, with no desire to find ; nor can I 

 conceive how any man can hunt twice with any estab- 

 lishment, liable to the suspicion of such a practice, which 

 is as unsportsmanlike as prejudicial to hounds, and the 

 general interests of the concern. There are some 

 people, it is true, who think it right to make out the 

 day, till dark;* who cannot trust themselves to their 

 own resources, should their work be over long before 

 their dinner time, and who would think it a sin to have 

 returned to kennel by two or three o'clock, whatever 

 may have been the sport since throwing off at eleven. 

 Some people, by the same rule, will consider a ball 

 but ill kept up, should dancing cease before daylight ; 

 others will, regardless of temperature, keep to certain 

 days for the dispensing with, or commencement of, 

 the enjoyment of a fire ; but I never yet could un- 

 derstand the merit of being regulated by anything but 

 natural inchnation, upon rational principles, in these 

 particulars. If all are merry, and none weary, or 

 wishing to be gone, Avhy mind the clock? I can see 



* I was talking, not long since, to a very clevei* huntsman — one as keen as 

 any of his fellows in enjoyment of the sport — on the subject of drawing for a 

 second fox, after a good run and satisfactory kill. "That is," said he, "just 

 what I caW putting the heggar over the gentleman.'' The phrase struck me as 

 having a degree of force fully atoning for any want of elegance in expression. 



