THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 83 



vidually undertake the two divisions of the country, 

 each making a point of attending on his particular 

 days, and notifying his co-master if he is unable to 

 hunt. A joint mastership where one master attended 

 to hounds, horses, and all kennel matters, while his 

 partner took charge in the field, has also been known; 

 and, again, a joint mastership has been heard of where 

 one man attended to everything, both at the kennels 

 and in the field, while the other supplied a large part of 

 the sinews of war and hunted occasionally. 



And now a very important point comes up, viz. the 

 question of a field master, and this question is every 

 day a more serious one. Time was when the master's 

 duties in an ordinary field were very simple, consisting 

 in the main of instructing his huntsman where he had 

 to draw. In the average provincial country, when the 

 same men were hunting day after day, a regular routine 

 in the matter of drawing coverts was generally ob- 

 served. The field knew exactly where to place them- 

 selves, and the master was fully aware that the regular 

 order of procedure would be carried out, and that in 

 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there was little 

 chance of a fox being headed by some member of the 

 field who was in the wrong place. If strangers ap- 

 peared, they, naturally enough, remained with the 

 crowd, and if they knew no one there was always 

 some one to give them a welcome, and put them up to 

 what was going forward. 



The master could therefore go into covert with his 

 hounds or remain with his friends, as he liked. He 

 knew that the discipline of the hunt was such that, 

 unless something exceptional occurred, everything 

 would be done in order, and that, in fact, there was 

 only a remote chance of things going wrong. If he 



