22 THE HUNTING FIELD 



To suppose that a man can be Master of a pack of hounds, 

 and not feel differently when things go on smoothly and well 

 to what he does when the}- all go crooked and wrong, is either 

 to suppose that he is ignorant of what he professes to direct, 

 or has feelings and passions different from other people. It is 

 the mode of conducting himself under the circumstances, the 

 language made use of, the manner, time, and style of the 

 reproof that constitutes the difference between the "best fellow 

 under the sun," and the " nastiest brute going." 



The old Masters, if history is to be credited, indulged in 

 the inuendo, or suaviter in viodo st3-le of rebuke rather than in 

 the "d — n your eyes " /ortiter in re one. Thus Mr. Meynell, 

 in reply to a persecuting over-rider, who would argue that 

 he was right, would bow and smilingly say, " You may be 

 perfectly right, sir, and I quite wrong, but there is gross 

 ignorance on one side or the other." Even this sort of rebuke 

 he did not care to repeat, generally the telling the man a 

 second time that he was incorrigible, and it was no use 

 admonishing him. Notwithstanding all his politeness, how- 

 ever, we are told that Mr. Meynell's indignation in the field 

 was sometimes excessive, frequently expressed by looks, some- 

 times by deputies, but still, when by words, he never de- 

 generated into rudeness. Mr. Corbet was a somewhat similar 

 character. A gentleman killed him a hound one daj'. He 

 saw who did it, but, instead of attacking the delinquent point 

 blank, he trotted past him, saying, "They've killed me a 

 favourite hound, sir ; you don't Jiappen to know who did it, 

 do you?" On another occasion he just dropped into the 

 delinquent's ear, en passant, " Killed the best hound in the 

 pack, that's alii" He caught a gentleman hunting the hounds 

 one day, "• Thank you, sir," exclaimed Mr. Corbet coming on 

 him unawares ; " thank you, sir," repeated he, "but m\- hounds 

 will do that quite as well zcithout you.'' 



How different to the language of a certain duke under similar 



