142 HORSES AND HOUNDS. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 



Place of meeting — "Where it is best — The master should keep and follow his 

 own counsel — Fox without a brush — Run with the same, and death — 

 Hour of meeting to be strictly attended to — The proper place for first 

 and second whip — Confidence of hounds in a huntsman; cruelty and 

 roughness utterly misapplied — Different ways of drawing — Foxes, like 

 dogs, sleepy in windy weather. 



Having now disposed of the business of the kennel, as well as 

 having treated of the number of hounds necessary to form the 

 hunting pack, we will follow them from the time of their 

 leaving the kennel in the morning until tliey arrive at the covert 

 side, or rather, I should say, the place of meeting ; for the covert 

 side should never be fixed upon as a place of meeting, for many 

 reasons. In the first place, if you meet at the covert side, the 

 chances are much against your finding a good fox there ; he will 

 be disturbed by people passing by or through the covert, and 

 leave it before the hounds are thrown in, or, being upon his legs 

 some time before the hounds commence drawing, they will be 

 hunting a stale drag to get up to him, whilst he is taking ad- 

 vantage_ of some hedgerow, to leave the covert and his pursuers 

 far behind. It is difficult to keep foot people out of a wood 

 where the hounds are to meet ; and poachers will take advan- 

 tage of it, either to open the earths, or catch your neighbour's 

 game. 



The place of meeting should be a mile or two from the covert 

 you intend drawing, and so situated, if possible, as to avoid 

 always the same line of woods, or knowing hands will wait at 

 the covert-side until the hounds come, and not go to the place 

 of meeting at all. I was often asked, when I had made my 

 fixtures at certain places, the line I intended to draw, but my 

 reply generally was, that I could give no positive infi)rmation, 

 as so much depended upon circumstances over which I had no 

 control ; as, for instance, our running into any of those coverts 

 before the day fixed, the quarter the wind might be in, ifec, &c. 

 Occasionally, to oblige gentlemen who came from a long dis- 

 tance, I have departed from this rule, but, as a general practice, 

 it is the best plan for a master of hounds to keep his own 

 counsel, and not pledge himself beforehand to any particular 

 line, which, when the time arrives, it may be most inconvenient 

 for him to pursue. There are, however, exceptions to most 

 general rules, and it is sometimes necessary to break through 

 our pre-concerted plans to satisfy the complaints of farmers, or 



