CHAPTER IV 

 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



IT is just possible that in these days there are 

 not so many applications for vacant masterships 

 of hounds as there were five-and-twenty years 

 ago, and it is also possible that the post, except in a 

 few very important countries, does not carry quite so 

 much prestige as it once did. We live in an age of 

 levelling, and just as the old glamour which once 

 existed all over the country with regard to the fox 

 has departed, so in some minor degree have the dig- 

 nity and importance which environed the mastership 

 of all well-regulated packs of hounds disappeared. 

 There are, of course, many hunting folk — mostly 

 country-bred people who have hunted from boyhood 

 — who still hold the master's office in the highest 

 reverence, but on the other hand the spirit of the 

 age by no means encourages this feeling, and it is 

 now the case that much depends on local surround- 

 ings, and thus the master of one pack is a local 

 hero, while the master of an adjoining pack is held 

 in no particular esteem, except by his own following. 

 In what may be called a sporting country, that is 

 to say in a district where the love of sport is really 

 strong, where the hounds have a big reputation, and 

 where a fair proportion of the residents are interested 

 in the hunt, the mastership must necessarily carry 

 with it considerable prestige. But where the country 



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