492 The Book of the Horse. 



in a season, the supply of neat spirits may be left to the good nature of the "field." On the 

 occasion of an accident in any of the established hunting counties there are always at least 

 half a dozen flasks at the disposal of the sufferer. 



Some persons are never thirsty, and after the hardest run over the stiffest country require 

 no fillip. These are usually young men in the highest condition, who have confined their 

 dinner potations to a few glasses of sound claret. After late hours, with uncounted cigars 

 and B. & S.'s, a hurried breakfast with no appetite, the drinking-flask is likely to be drawn 

 on even before the hounds have found. 



Flasks are filled with all sorts of drinks, from cold tea, claret, sherry-and-water, to 

 Drandy, whiskey, or gin. Two of the best Masters of fox-hounds this country ever saw filled 

 their long horn flasks with gin-and-water, and seldom tasted them until they turned their 

 horses' heads towards home. And I knew a very hard man who never carried anything in his 

 flask but cold tea. Cold tea should be an infusion made with cold water. 



The worst flasks are of metal, silver, or plated pewter, which cannot be properly cleansed. 

 The best are of glass covered with leather if worn in the pocket, and with wicker if fitted 

 into a hunting horn-case attached to the pommel of the saddle. There can be no doubt 

 that the less a man drinks in the field the better for his riding. As for those poor wretches 

 who require Dutch courage, in the shape of drams, to brace their nerves before riding a run, 

 they are much fewer in number than when "Nimrod" wrote his "Life of Jack Mytton," and 

 very much to be pitied. 



It is quite certain that no man can retain his riding nerve wlio, after sitting up late to 

 drink or smoke, is obliged to get up early to hunt. 



On the way home, if it becomes necessary to take any refreshment at roadside taverns, 

 brandy and wine are to be avoided, as the chances are in favour of their being, if not of 

 British, of Hamburgh manufacture. Milk can generally be obtained ; this, with a dash of 

 the truly English liquor gin, will be found a wholesome restorative to an empty, exhausted 

 stomach. In Scotland or Ireland whiskey would naturally take the place of " Old Tom." 



The arts of " making shift " have been carried to such perfection of late years for the 

 benefit of yachtsmen, boat pic-nickers and canoeists, that young sportsmen, encamping in an 

 old-fashioned farm-house for the benefit of hunting, need no longer be dependent on the 

 limited resources of a farm-house furniture and kitchen. The well of an ordinary dog-cart 

 will carry enough to make any room of four bare walls comfortable, if not luxurious, while 

 the preserved soups and meats and fish of Aberdeen and America will amply make up for 

 the deficiencies of a rural larder. 



I have not anyv/here heard, except in the pages of a novel, of the resources of the private 

 telegraph system being utilised in a country mansion. One can imagine an arrangement by 

 which the return of a hunting-party might be notified to the stud-groom and clicf de cuisine 

 the moment they passed a telegraph station within ten miles, and again when the lodge-gates 

 of a park are anything like a mile from the house. 



" Nimrod " relates that the first Duke of Cleveland, 



" Darlington's peer, with his chin sticking out and his cap on one ear," 



had suits of dress clothes deposited at several farm-houses within a certain distance round 

 Raby Castle. To one of these stations he used to ride when the hunting day was finished, 

 and dress while his pad groom went for a post-chaise. As the duke entered the lodge-gates. 



