136 H^OESES AND HOUNDS, 



that your masters may ride in gilded coaches, or live in glitter- 

 ing tinselled palaces. The farmer and his workmen have one 

 common and united interest; together they rise for their 

 morning work, together bear the heat and labour of the day, 

 together rejoice or repine, as things go well or ill. No hard 

 taskmasters are they ; nor spurn from their door the old man 

 who has become grey-headed in their service. Together master 

 and man are seen approaching the house of God on the Sabbath 

 morn, and side by side they are often laid in the narrow house 

 appointed for all living in the evening of that day when all the 

 trials and troubles of tliis world are ended. Such was the case in 

 olden times, and such are the feelings which still exist between 

 the farmer and labourer. The present raceof farmers may not 

 labour with their hands so much as did their fathers, but their 

 heads have little respite. Their hearts are still in the right 

 place — the mantle of integrity has descended unsullied from 

 father to sons ; and their boast- yet is, and I trust ever will be, 

 in the words of the old song, " that it still from a spot shall 

 be free." 



CHAPTER XXIL 



Hour of feeding — Difference of food and treatment — Animal food necessary — 

 Number of hounds to form the hunting pack in field — On drafting 

 hounds — One fault not to be overlooked — In what the strength of a pack 

 of fox-hounds consists — Pack of hoimds that hunted hare and fox — Horses 

 and hoxmds of old school — Pack dividing, and each killing their own fox. 



Having now settled what the qualifications of huntsmen and 

 whippers-in should be, I shall proceed to treat of the qualifica- 

 tions of the hound — the hour of feeding, number of hounds 

 requisite to form the hunting pack, and other details. The 

 general hour for feeding in most establishments is about eleven 

 o'clock — the prevailing opinion being that hounds should be 

 sharp set (as the term is) before hunting. They have thus four- 

 and-twenty hours before they commence work, and often to 

 wait for nearly thirty until fed again ; for, supposing they kill 

 only one fox in the day, what is that among twenty couples of 

 hounds, the usual complement in the field? Hardly a taste 

 for each. 



From long experience and observation I am satisfied that 

 fox-hounds, if treated differently, would last much longer than 

 they usually do under this half-starving system of the present 



