THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 395 



ties. The safer plan, then, may be to mix the sexes in the 

 field. This will about balance the account. I would, 

 however, advise you to have more bitches than dogs in 

 your kennel, with a view to future proceedings." 



We must now bring this tale to an end. Our hero 

 established himself as a master of foxhounds in one of the 

 best countries in England, hunting them himself with the 

 greatest satisfaction to his field, and being generally con- 

 sidered one of the most popular of his class. Availing 

 himself of his own experience as a sportsman, and also of 

 the suggestions of those who had long preceded him in 

 his calling, he distinguished himself as a huntsman before 

 the closing of his second season, and the fame and reputa- 

 tion of " RABY'S HOUNDS " filled all the houses and stables 

 in their country. His private character, likewise, was in 

 no less esteem. Observant of all the relations of social 

 life, he gained the approbation of the good ; his example 

 went far towards reclaiming the evil propensities of the 

 bad ; and in the narrower sphere of private friendship, 

 society cannot often produce a better specimen of this 

 princely virtue than that exhibited by Frank Raby. 

 That he never entered into the married state may excite 

 surprise, but he had more than once been heard to assign 

 his reasons for remaining single. In the first place, he 

 was unwilling to disturb his excellent mother in the en- 

 joyment of Amstead Abbey as her home, and she lived 

 until he had passed his fortieth year. Secondly, although 

 he acknowledged the truth of the assertion, that the heart 

 of man is like a creeping plant, which withers unless it 

 have something round which it can entwine, he had im- 

 bibed the notion, and much that he had seen and heard 

 unfortunately tended to confirm it, that a man devoted, 

 like himself, to the sports of the field, was scarcely fitted 

 for the married state. 



" Not one woman in fifty," he would say, " is a suitable 

 wife for such a man, and that one it might not have been 

 my luck to find." 



Then, although far from being insensible to female 

 charms, he was somewhat mistrustful of the duration of 

 their power ; and the following couplet was often on his 

 tongue, when matrimony and its joys became the subject 

 of discourse : 



" Love may expire ; the gay, the happy dream 

 May turn to scorn, indifference, or esteem." 



