SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 403 



CHAPTER XLVII. 



"But if the rouglier sex by tins fierce sport 

 Is liurried wild, let not such horrid joy- 

 E'er stain the bosom of the British fair. 

 Far be the si)irit of the chase from them ! 

 Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill, 

 To spring the fence, to run the prancing steed : 

 The cap, the whip, the masculine attire, 

 In which they roughen to the sense ; and all 

 The winning softness of their sex is lost." 



A clear stage — Clearing a pack and five-barred gate — Pressing hounds 

 — Thoroughbred hunters no novelty — Short and bang tails — 

 Ladies in the hunting-field. 



At present we are treating of the duties wMcli the 

 "field" owe to the master and his hounds; here- 

 after we may discuss the forbearance they ought to 

 exhibit towards each other. We lay this down as a 

 rule absolute, recognised by ever}^ true sportsman, 

 that no man is justified in riding so close upon the 

 line of the pack as to interfere with their just prero- 

 gative of doing their proper business in a proper 

 way. If a man cannot ride to hounds without rid- 

 ing after them — that is, in their wake— he is bound 

 to give the last hounds both time and space to clear 

 every fence before he puts his horse at it. Nervous 

 riders are always in an absurd fuss about this very 

 thing, and why ? Hounds don^t run now, if they 

 ever did, in a long extended line of half a mile, when 

 it might be imagined that the leading couples would 



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