136 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



suggest fifteen guineas per horse. No doubt, if he 

 has four, the Hunt will be quite satisfied with a sub- 

 scription of fifty for the season, but anything much 

 below this cannot be regarded as generous or even 

 adequate. There are plenty who give their ten or 

 fifteen guineas for the season, with, say, a couple of 

 animals, and there are others who give maybe what 

 they consider enough for themselves, while they over- 

 look the possibility, not to say probability, of a wife, 

 a stray daughter or two, or a son, all coming out of the 

 same subscription. 



I have now to touch on a somewhat delicate subject. 

 It used, in the good old days, to be a maxim that it was 

 not right to ask a lady for a subscription. In a big 

 field of to-day, however, there are often more women 

 than men, and it is useless to deny that they do about 

 three times the damage. The ordinary hunting-woman 

 would no more dream of riding up a furrow to save 

 the rest of the field than she would dream of flying, 

 and she will revel in a gallop over a turnip-field, ignor- 

 ing the fact that a turnip dies at every stride of her 

 horse. She rarely knows seeds from old grass land, 

 and if she did I fear I am not convinced that she would 

 turn her mount a hair's breadth out of the way. On 

 the whole, then, and taking my risk of being voted un- 

 gallant, I would not, had I a free hand, allow any 

 woman to come out with my pack unless she had sub- 

 scribed as much as any man, if not, indeed, more. 



The Hunt subscription is usually guaranteed to the 

 Master by a few gentlemen of the Hunt. They are 

 rarely called upon to discharge the liability, but the 



