112 THE HUNTING FIELD 



Moors, open fields, common lands, &c., are all favourable to 

 hunting, not only as tending to promote the straightforward 

 progression of the chase, but m preventing the honourable 

 contention of arriving first at big leaps ; for it may be observed 

 that men are never jealous of each other so long as there 

 is no fencing. Our forefathers, therefore, had every chance 

 of being sportsmen : for, besides having no rivalry or emulation 

 among themselves, the lengths of their runs, with the softness 

 of their steeds, tended to make the riders save them at all 

 points. With the exception, too, of perhaps some half-dozen 

 hunts, Mr. Beckford's, Mr. Meynell's, Lord Talbot's, Lord 

 Yarborough's, Lord Fitzwilliams's, and a few others, the 

 majority of the packs were either trencher-fed, or only 

 kennelled during the winter ; a couple, or so, of hounds, 

 perhaps, being kept at the house of each follower, whose 

 attention would be riveted on his darlings in chase, instead 

 of diverted to the rasping of Thompson, or the bruising of 

 Jobson. These hunts were doubtless very popular, for there 

 is nothing so taking as a little bustle and stir, in which all 

 are at liberty to share. That is what makes a contested 

 election so popular. Men come out, and fuss, and canvass, 

 and strut, and swagger, who are heard of no more until 

 another contest comes round. There was another charac- 

 teristic attendant on many hunts in former days, which is 

 almost wholly lost sight of now — namely, hunts that used to 

 hunt hare till Christmas, and fo.x after. We never hear of 

 such establishments now — at least not avowedly — though 

 there are, doubtless, some that will hunt hare either before or 

 after Christmas ; but there are still those ubiquitous gentle- 

 men, the " oldest inhabitant," whose retentive memories are 

 charged with the miraculous doings of the past — how they 

 dragged up to reynard by daybreak — how Jowler unkennelled 

 him — how Towler hit him off at the road, and what a dance 

 he led them over hill and dale, till all the foot people were 



