THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 219 



folly to put hounds on scent when the ground is hard as 

 iron, as it only serves long enough to send them home 

 lamed and shaken all over. In the season of 1828-29, 

 if I remember right, so long did we lack moisture that 

 no hounds could take the field for regular hunting till 

 the 17th of November. The Oakley Club met, as was 

 the custom, in the first week of that month, at the 

 Cock, at Eaton Socon ; but the most agreeable sequel 

 to those dinners was, on the following morning, neces- 

 sarily adjourned, sine die ; the deep holding clay of the 

 capital country about Roxton spinneys being of a con- 

 sistency too hard for the finest of young English gen- 

 tlemen of that day, however well inchned they might 

 have been, with those of the present, for " going it like 

 bricks."* Such times and seasons try the patience of 

 masters of hounds, anxious for their credit ; but as old 

 Wise, of Southampton, was wont to observe, " There's 

 a deal of luck in all these things." If you are balked 

 of your cub-hunting you must not be dispirited, but 

 endeavour to make up for it as soon as you can. We 

 cannot command success, but may all try to deserve it. 

 It is too common, in many countries, for the sake of the 

 noses, which all count in the return of killed upon the 

 kennel door, to make wanton waste of cubs, where cir- 

 cumstances are favourable to " getting hold of them." 



* Vide song — " The fine young English gentleman," — last verse. 



