216 THE HUNTING FIELD 



English nobleman. Now they are put on a truck and tacked 

 to the tail of a train, with little more ceremony than attends 

 the transit of Mr. Flatcatcher's race-horse, or Mr. Bullock- 

 smithy's fat ox. The utilitarians will tell you that it is all the 

 better, but we don't know that it is for all that. Some one 

 said " there had been ten men hung for every inch they had 

 curtailed in the judge's wig," and state — even on the road — 

 was not without its advantages. To be sure the public style 

 of travelling favours intercourse with the world and knowledge 

 of life ; but, as we said before, there is no better place than the 

 hunting field for acquiring that. However, railroads are now 

 the universal mode of travelling, and my Lord Duke and 

 family, who formerly made a grand progress through England 

 of many days — travelling with a retinue as long as Polito's or 

 Wombwell's menageries — now whisk from one end of the 

 kingdom to the other in the liberal limits of a summer's da\-. 



Let us look at a nobleman "at home," as Mathews used to 

 say of himself. 



What a world in miniature a nobleman's castle is. Placed 

 in nature's choicest, sunniest spot, it looks upon all the 

 luxuries, necessaries, and enjoyments of life; waving corn- 

 fields rise beyond the park — herds of deer are scattered over it 

 — the many-coloured and scarcely less picturesque little wild 

 Scotch kyloes fatten in droves, while the more sedate and 

 matronly cows graze indolently in groups — hares, pheasants, 

 and partridges run and bask about, with a sort of privileged 

 security — the rabbit warren is alive, and the sedgy sun-bright 

 lakes swarm with fisii and wild-fowl, and the clear purling 

 stream with beautiful speckled trout. In those paddocks may 

 be seen brood mares and foals, the winners, and expected 

 winners, of our great prizes, while in others the worn-out 

 favourites of the hunting field close 



"A youtli of labour with an age of ease." 



Then the stables, the coach-houses, the harness-rooms, the 



