HUNTING FROM LONDON. 267 



we shall be much surprised not to find most sportsmen (as 

 different beings from mere riding men, different even from 

 mere hunting men) ranged at our side beneath them. TJie 

 true pleasii7'es of hittitifig, we say it again, a7'e knouni only by 

 those who hunt from home. 



There are many reasons why this should be so, on which 

 we feel that we could expatiate finely, but will not. One of 

 them, and perhaps the cardinal one, has been well put by 

 Charles Kingsley (as genuine in his love of sport as in every- 

 thing else that becomes a man) in the most charming of his 

 shorter pieces, ' My Winter Garden.' He is riding through the 

 fir woods round about Eversley, when he encounters (luckily 

 he does not head !) a hunted fox, and Mr. Garth's hounds in 

 full cry after him. 



And now appear, dim at first and distant, but brightening and 

 nearing fast, many a right good fellow, and many a right good 

 horse. I know three out of four of them, their private histories and 

 the private histories of their horses, and could tell you many a good 

 story of them, but shall not, being an English gentleman, and not 

 an American litterateur. They may not all be very clever, or very 

 learned, or very anything except gallant men ; but they are all 

 good enough company for me, or anyone ; and each has his own 

 specialite\ for which I like him. That huntsman I have known for 

 fifteen years, and sat many an hour beside his father's death-bed. 

 I am godfather to that whip's child. I have seen the servants of 

 the hunt, as I have the hounds, grow up round me for two genera- 

 tions, and I feel for them as old friends, and like to look into their 

 brave, honest, weather-beaten faces. That red-coat there, I knew 

 him when he was a schoolboy ; and now he is a captain in the 

 Guards, and won his Victoria Cross at Inkerman ; that bright 

 green coat is the best farmer, as well as the hardest rider, for many 

 a mile round ; one who plays, as he works, Vv^ith all his might, and 

 might have been a beau sabi'eur., a colonel of dragoons. So might 

 that black-coat, who now brews good beer, and stands up for the 

 poor at the Board of Guardians, and rides, like the green-coat, as 

 well as he works. That other black-coat is a county banker, but 

 he knows more of the fox than the fox knows of himself; and where 

 the hounds are, there will he be this day. That red-coat has 

 hunted kangaroo in Australia ; that one, as clever and good as he 



