106 UNASKED ADVICE. 



The hard rider^s ctiance of spoiling the fun occurs 

 chiefly at a check. While the huntsman is casting they 

 will keep poking on after him^ foiling the ground and 

 distracting the attention of the hounds. Another fault, 

 which ought to be punishable by law, is the habit some 

 men have of sending their second horse to some covert 

 which will be drawn for a second fox. A good fox hears 

 voices and perceives the well-known bouquet of singed 

 horsehair, and begins creeping about the gorse. He 

 peeps out, sees the coast more clear than usual, and is 

 away. On the arrival of the hounds the covert is blank,, 

 while a few tongues serve to raise never-to-be-gratified 

 hopes j and the thinking portion of the field, hearing 

 hounds speak and seeing no fox, go away condemning the 

 pack as riotous. " Pack of brutes ! got running a rabbit 

 in So-and-so Gorse ! wasted half an hour, and then went 

 home^'' — there being perhaps nothing else to draw. When 

 hounds are at a check on a road, anyone can spoil sport, 

 and, as rule, every one combines in doing it. Without 

 thinking one way or the other of the hounds, A. keeps on, 

 wishing to sell his horse to B. ; C. just moves out of 

 range of D.^s horse^s heels ; E. wants to ask F. about a 

 servant^s character ; while G. sees H. talking with 

 animation to Miss I. — a proceeding that must be stopped 

 at all hazards. Meanwhile the hounds are miles over the 

 place where their game left the turnpike, and the latter 

 sits down and waits for them, of course ! 



So much for the field. Now, cannot the master spoil 

 sport ? Of course he can, though he doesnH often do it» 

 Disagreeable manners, jealous riding, and, above all, not 

 being possessed of the faculty of remembering people's 

 names, will make a good sportsman unpopular, and so 

 the sport will suffer. Above all things, a master of 



