46 THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



to the ladies, in the middle of the story) ; " you know 

 Farmer Williams's mare dropped down dead, in the 

 middle of a turnip field, the beginning of this season, in 

 the famous run you had with that slate-pits hare." 



" True, my dear," replied Mr. Raby ; " but Dick tells 

 me she had only been up from grass a fortnight, and that 

 she died from want of condition." 



"Thank ye, Francis," exclaimed Mr. Somerby ; "I'll 

 drink a bumper to your health. You have given me a 

 capital lift in the defence I am called upon to make to 

 a somewhat serious charge, and to a reflection upon fox- 

 hunters and fox-hunting. You have helped me to the 

 very loop-hole at which I can escape. You shall now hear 

 what I have to say ; and, as I am sure you will, one day 

 or another, be a fox -hunter, I advise you to bear in mind 

 my observations. The facts are these : Mr. Meynell, 

 and some other masters of foxhounds, have brought them 

 to the very highest pitch of perfection of which their 

 nature I believe is capable, both as to high breeding and 

 condition ; whilst the state of the horses that follow them 

 is left very nearly where it was. Strange to say, Cecil 

 Forester, the very best rider we have amongst us, and 

 supposed to be the best judge of a hunter, declares he 

 never saw half a dozen first-rate thorough-bred hunters in 

 his life ; the consequence is, that the half-bred horse is 

 still, for the most part, required to do what the thorough- 

 bred cannot more than do ; which is, to go a racing pace 

 over a country ; and he must go a racing pace to keep up 

 to Meynell's hounds. Then, again, the hunter remains in 

 the back-ground in another respect. Hounds are pre- 

 served in condition all the year round ; that is to say, they 

 are kept to a certain point of strength in their food during 

 the summer, and are exercised regularly till hunting 

 again commences. But how is the hunter served ? Why, 

 by the absurd prejudice of our grooms, to which we 

 inconsiderately give way, he is stripped of his fine con- 

 dition at the end of the season, which, by the way, it has 

 taken half a year to acquire, and allowed to run three 

 months abroad, accumulating a load of bad, flabby flesh, 

 amidst the persecution of flies by day, and subject to all 

 the vicissitudes of our climate by night. Now what 

 follows 1 He is taken up in August, and by the end of 

 October at all events, by the first week in November 

 is expected to be equal to more than the exertions of the 



