142 FOX-HUNTING 



most — to be there to see every detail of 

 their work as if he were a hound himself. 

 Weather, indifferent scent, bad countries, 

 ugly fences, and even an imperfect mount, 

 are but to him difficulties he can delight 

 in fighting with. He rides to hunt ; but 

 he who hunts to ride will, as years pass by, 

 find the bad days are too many, the good 

 days too few, the country too familiar to 

 ever taste the rapture and expectation that 

 charmed his younger days : either he 

 abandons the chase or comes out for air, 

 exercise, and gossip. But from youth to 

 age the other's interest never fiags. When a 

 boy the hounds are a wonder ; the country is 

 an immense and mysterious paradise ; the 

 hard man is his model ; the huntsman his 

 hero ; and in every fox he sees the possi- 



