460 The Book of the House. 



the same county very good sport was shown with a scratch pack of hounds by a professional 

 Master for less than a thousand a year. 



On the other hand, a pack of harriers may be kept up in really good style for about 

 five hundred a year, and a pack of stag-hounds at about one thousand a year. Every gentleman 

 who appears regularly at the meets of a subscription (not being a county pack) is expected to 

 subscribe, and with the packs that meet within fifty miles of London, a stranger will probably 

 receive a hint to that effect after the third or fourth visit. The farmers whose holdings are 

 within easy reach of a metropolitan railway would naturally object to any hunting at all if the 

 " fields " were not strictly limited. With harriers, a collection called " a cap " is generally made 

 before the hounds throw off, of from two-and-sixpence to five shillings, from each non-subscriber. 



For a new man, in the sense of the French term noitveau riche, to obtain admission into 

 a county hunting club is almost as difficult as to be balloted into the most exclusive clubs 

 of London, say White's or the Travellers', and can only be effected by the same means 

 — good introductions. Money alone is not a passport, although with tact it will do a good 

 deal. 



The position of the Master of a subscription pack of fox-hounds involves, if propel ly 

 performed, grave responsibilities, much time and labour, and a host of rural troubles. Varied 

 considerations induce men to accept, and even to seek, the doubtful honour. In the first 

 rank stand those who take upon themselves a government almost as difficult as that of Spain 

 or France, because they are born sportsmen ; because the subscription, added to their own 

 means, enables them to enjoy more hunting than they could otherwise afford ; because they 

 are never so happy as when hunting their hounds in the season, and in attending to all the 

 details of breeding, exercising, and training them out of season. Such men are content to 

 shog along grass lanes with the pack at their heels for hour after hour in summer, and to 

 spend afternoons in playing with them in some quiet nook of a park. The hounds, the 

 kennel huntsman, and a few chosen friends deep in hound pedigree, content them for society 

 during the best part of the year. Such men, although independent in circumstances, with 

 moderate incomes, and no expensive tastes beyond the hunting-field, are generally popular 

 with all the farmers of the district, and their wives ! They make fair words go as far — or 

 further — than money ; they exercise infinite tact and temper in settling the inevitable diffi- 

 culties of damages to fences and poultry, the still more difficult discussions with pheasant 

 preservers and their gamekeepers, and of late years the costly negotiations for the removal 

 of wire fences in the hunting season. When such men are also good horsemen, who, riding 

 in front, can look the thrusting swells in the face when it is necessary to cry, " Hold hard ! " 

 they have less difficulty in keeping eager "fields" in order than those often capital RI.l'M-I.'s, 

 of mature years and heavy weight, who are obliged to trust to opened gates and easy gaps. 

 But there are some countries where the armies of high-bred sportsmen can only be prevented 

 from spoiling their own sport by the authority of one who combines high rank with hard- 

 riding qualifications. 



But even when everything is well managed in the kennel, the stable, and the field, when 

 the farmers are friendly, wire-traps are removed, and foxes fairly preserved, there remain too 

 often bitter drops at the bottom of the goblet of sport, in the shape of a meddlesome com- 

 mittee — of subscriptions insufficient or ill-paid — and of cantankerous supporters who persistently 

 exercise the easy task of finding fault with the hounds, the horses, the huntsman, the style of 

 hunting, and everything else. 



Fox-hunting sport is dependent on scent — scent is the most uncertain thing in the world. 



