QUEER NOTIONS OF HUNTING. 201 



opinions that I could not reconcile with anything I 

 had learned by former experience. His plan seemed 

 to me to be, to do nothing, and I have been told that 

 he has said, that when a hound distinguished himself 

 in the pack by making a wonderful hit, he always 

 drafted him, it being wrong, in his opinion, that one 

 hound should be able to distinguish himself from the 

 others. I have not heard Mr. Wyndham say this ; 

 and if the rumour that he has said so be not founded 

 on fact, I beg his pardon for repeating it. Still, I 

 saw enough of his system to feel quite sure that his 

 foxes had a jubilee, and that, unless there was such a 

 scent as forced the hounds to come along, neither 

 Mr. '\^^yndham's exertion nor that of his hounds 

 would make a bad day a middling one, nor a mid- 

 dling day one that was amply satisfactory. The 

 greatest compliment I ever had paid me, as to my 

 huntsman's capabilities, was when riding men, as well 

 as sportsmen (they are not always the same), said, 

 " \Ye like to come with you ; for whatever the scent 

 is, you always give us something to do." A hunts- 

 man may make a bad day a good one by doing as 

 Tom Oldacre used to do, when there was no scent to 

 serve his hounds ; that is, guess the run of his fox 

 so well, that he lifts his hounds from point to point 

 till the weary fox comes back to him, and, instead of 

 keeping so far before the hounds, flxils in his pace so 

 much, that tlie hounds get near enough to him to 

 make a scent, wherewith to run and kill him. I call 

 the man capable of doing this a huntsman. Foolish 

 people say, " Never lift hounds." The real answer to 

 this is, " Never lift them, unless they need it ;" but 

 if you are to have a good pack of hounds, willing and 

 able to kill their foxes, I assert that they must occa- 

 sionally be lifted, or the show on the kennel-doors 



