54 THE HUNTING FIELD 



The Huntsman is the main spring in the macliinery of a 

 hunting estabhshment, and upon his good conduct greatly 

 depends the comfort and pleasure of the Master. If the 

 Huntsman is — what we must do them the justice of saying 

 the generality of them are — a steady, honest, careful, accurate, 

 economical, intelligent, painstaking man, holding the money 

 scales fairly between his master and the public, neither cheat- 

 ing himself, nor suffering others to cheat, soothing asperities, 

 rather than creating them, demolishing difficulties rather than 

 raising them ; he will be a credit to himself, a comfort to his 

 master, and the ornament of a circle composed of men not 

 onh- well capable of appreciating, but also in the habit of 

 substantially rewarding respectability of character and keen- 

 ness displayed in their service. But if a Huntsman is a low- 

 lived, careless, gossiping, drinking, grinding fellow, seeking 

 only to feather his own nest, and that in the shortest possible 

 time, he will be a torment to himself and everybody about 

 him ; and when he loses his place, which he most likely very 

 soon will, he will find his character so blown, that the mere 

 mention of his name to any other master will insure him a 

 polite answer that he has no occasion for liis services. A pack 

 of hounds without a good Huntsman are very much like a 

 fiddle without a stick. 



Despite, however, what we have said about the liberality 

 of sportsmen to huntsmen and hound servants, we cannot but 

 feel that, considering what they do, the risks they run, and 

 the zeal the}- show, they are sometimes rather under than over 

 paid. Compare them, for instance, with jockej'S, who occupy 

 a somewhat similar position in the racing, to what hound 

 servants do in the hunting world. A jockey gets his two or 

 three guineas a race, winning or losing, but if he wins a good 

 stake for his employer, there is no saj'ing to what extent the 

 delightful delirium of the moment may induce a victorious 

 master to go. We have heard that Jem Robinson got a 



