THE GROOM 111 



Groom of my lord duke, who occasionally condescends to 

 hold a stirrup, down to the yokel who looks "arter" old 

 Miss Frowsington's "one oss chay," digs the garden, waits 

 at table, milks the cow, washes the poodle, cleans the parrot's 

 cage, sweethearts the maid, and makes himself generally 

 useless and troublesome. Grooms rank high in the scale 

 of servitude, and though in our fancy sketch of the Earl 

 Marshal's coronation procession we put house servants above 

 them, yet, if we were arranging them, we are not sure but we 

 would place Grooms immediately after Huntsmen and kennel 

 servants. We look upon a Groom as a real useful article 

 in an establishment ; in our mind they rank equal with the 

 cook in the domestic department, and, like cooks, are of 

 exceedingly various orders of merit. We can't do without a 

 Groom, any more than we can without a cook ; for though in 

 our moments of high-horseish-ness we may swear that we will 

 clean our own horse or cook our own dinner, rather than put 

 up with the impudence of a servant, still it is a feat that no 

 one would like to be constantly repeating. Grooms, there- 

 fore, we say, are really useful people, and, like the old story 

 of the king and the basket-maker of our childhood, rank 

 before the ornamental " knights of the napkin '" and toilette. 



Of course in this our " Analysis of the Hunting Field," 

 the Hunting Groom is the one we have most in our mind's 

 eye, and to him we shall chiefly direct our observations. 



A great change we imagine has taken place in the whole 

 style and system of hunting within the last century, and every- 

 thing appertaining to horses, hounds, country and riding, has 

 undergone material alteration. 



If we take an old map of a county, it looks like a barren 

 plain instead of the divided town-dotted populous region of 

 the present day, and though in riding over it we may be told 

 that this is Thisselton Moor, or that Wideopen Common, 

 there is nothing to indicate such regions but the name. 



