WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 153 



they want to keep it The old feeling coming up again 

 — the land reasserting itself, Spain you see — down with 

 feudalism, but let us have the game. Look down the 

 long list of hounds kept in England, not one of which 

 could get a run were it not for the good-will of the 

 farmers, and indeed of the labourers. Hunting is a 

 mimicry of the mediaeval chase, and this is the nine- 

 teenth century of the socialist, yet every man of the 

 fields loves to hear the horn and the burst of the hounds. 

 Never was shooting, for instance, carried to such per- 

 fection, perfect guns made with scientific accuracy, plans 

 of campaign among the pheasants set out with diagrams 

 as if there was going to be a battle of Blenheim in the 

 woods. To be a successful sportsman nowadays you 

 must be a well-drilled veteran, never losing presence of 

 mind, keeping your nerve under fire — flashes to the left 

 of you, reports to the right of you, shot whistling from 

 the second line — a hero amid the ceaseless rattle of 

 musketry and the 'dun hot breath of war.' Of old time 

 the knight had to go through a long course of instruc- 

 tions. He had to acquire the manege of his steed, the 

 use of the lance and sword, how to command a troop, 

 and how to besiege a castle. Till perfect in the arts of 

 war and complete in the minutiae of falconry and all the 

 terms of the chase, he could not take his place in the 

 ranks of men. The English country gentleman who 

 now holds something the same position socially as the 

 knight, is not a sportsman till he can use the breech- 

 loader with terrible effect at the pheasant-shoot, till he 

 can wield the salmon-rod, or ride better than any 

 Persian. Never were people — people in the widest 

 sense — fonder of horses and dogs, and every kind of 

 animal, than at the present day. The town has gone out 

 into the country, but the country has also penetrated 



