44 THE HUNTING FIELD 



the ass may be carried still further. Turn a horse loose and 

 you don't know where he will go ; but give a donkey his head, 

 and see if he won't stop. It is just the same with a fox and a 

 hare. You never know where a fox is bound, but a hare is 

 almost invariably within the circle of the " magic ring." The 

 fox is travelling, the hare perhaps squatting under your horse's 

 feet. So far from having hunted harriers being a qualification 

 for hunting foxhounds, we should say it was a downright 

 objection. You have to unteach the harrier man all he knows, 

 before you begin to teach. Better have a fresh horn and begin 

 a new spoon. We would rather have a fellow from the roughest 

 pack going, whose constant pursuit had been '' fox," than one 

 of the psalm-singing gentry. Not that we decry harehunting 

 as a sport ; legitimately followed it is capital amusement, but 

 we should never take a Huntsman for foxhounds from a pack 

 of harriers. Instead of thinking which way the fox had gone, 

 he would be always thinking which way he had come. 



We once heard of a harrier genius who, on the strength of 

 having successfully manoeuvred some ten or twelve couple of 

 waffling beggars, undertook the situation of Huntsman to a 

 scratch pack of foxhounds. A scratch pack of foxhounds, 

 especially a newly set up one, is always a dangerous thing. 

 You have all the \\ild, resolute, vigorous power of the animal 

 without the discipline ; added to this, theyare generally composed 

 of the wild, vicious, savage hounds of other packs ; things that 

 escape hanging by going to scratch ones. Having, however, 

 subdued the merr\' mettle of the harriers, generally with a rate, 

 at all events with a cut of the whip, our hero thinking foxhounds 

 were to be similarl}- kept down, " broke kennel " the morning 

 after his somewhat sudden installation, with a very riotous 

 crew at his horse's heels. He got to the place of meeting with 

 his own and the noisy efforts of a young clown in boots, and 

 the field began to assemble. The meet was in a valley, and un- 

 fortunately on the opposite hill were some newly stubbed, but 



