146 PEECEPT AND PEACTICE. 



hunters would be thrown away on one who is not a 

 finished workman, what do you say to the hacks ?" 



" I am afraid I shall at once lose your good opinion 

 when I say the same by them. This is your d^bijtt 

 in the hunting field, and I consider it quite unneces- 

 sary that you should give two hundred apiece for 

 horses to carry you. For this reason — I suppose 

 you do not contemplate making that debut in any of 

 our crack countries. You will find just as much 

 amusement in others ; for let me tell you the leading 

 cause of a vast number of men hunting in the first is 

 again ' affectation," in another form. Half of them 

 care little for the hunting. Most of them are men 

 of large fortune ; they can aff'ord to have all-but- 

 faultless horses, and they go into countries where the 

 pace hounds go, and the nature of such country, 

 enables them to show they have such horses. I have 

 there heard, when a check occurred, many a man 

 anathematise the fox, hounds, and huntsman, while 

 at the same time I could see from the state of his 

 horse that three or four pastures more would (at 

 the pace the hounds had been going) have brought 



