80 THE HUNTING FIELD 



Huntsmen Whippers-in are like lieutenant-colonels, they 

 have the full command, except when the colonel is present. 

 The simile, perhaps, is not quite good, for the presence of the 

 colonel is the exception, whereas the absence of the Master is 

 generally so in the hunting field. The seldomer the Master is 

 absent, the greater, of course, the difficulty of the Huntsman 

 Whipper-in when he is. Beckford relates how a Master of 

 Harriers had found out that the use of a Whipper-in was to 

 ride after the hare, and keep her in view as long as he could ; 

 and we remember a Gentleman-Huntsman assigning a some- 

 what similar position to his Huntsman Whipper-in with 

 foxhounds. Some one observing that he wondered the 

 Gentleman-Huntsman kept a Huntsman when he did the 

 thing so well himself, and was so constantly out, received for 

 answer, that it was " convenient to have some one to ' blow 

 up ' when things went wrong." "Blowing up," however, is 

 more generally the perquisite of the second Whip than the 

 first, he always being younger, and his place more easily 

 supplied. We know " a Master " who used to use the second 

 Whip for the purpose of blowing up the field. When he saw 

 a man do wrong, he would send the Whip to ride within ear- 

 shot of him, and then he would come storming up, reading the 

 riot act to the boy, pretending he had done what the gentleman 

 had done. 



Having, however, compared the Huntsman Whipper-in to 

 the colonel of a regiment, we may pursue the military simile, 

 and say, that as in the army the comfort of a subaltern is 

 greatly dependent on the character and disposition of the 

 colonel, so, in the hunting establishment, the comfort of the 

 Whippers-in are greatly dependent on the manner and conduct 

 of the Huntsman. Some Huntsmen are desperately coarse 

 and overbearing with their Whips, especially their second 

 ones, and then having frightened and bullied their wits out of 

 them, they wonder they are good for nothing. We dropped 



