200 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



explain it to my readers, I asked my old acquaintance, 

 John Scott, late huntsman of the Albrighton Hounds, 

 to spend a day with me in the Albrighton country. I 

 wanted him to write this chapter, but he retorted that 

 he was no "literary man." This was not the strict 

 truth, as his letters to me prove. However, I was only 

 too glad to obtain his opinions and information. My 

 chief regret is that I cannot reproduce them in the 

 same hearty virile language in which he expressed 

 them to me. 



The duty of the Master is to keep the field in order ; 

 the duty of the huntsman is to kill a fox. In regard 

 to this axiom Scott was most emphatic. If the Master 

 interferes with the huntsman when hounds check, 

 more especially on a cold scenting day, the probability 

 is that the fox will save his brush. Let us consider the 

 following case, which is far from being uncommon : 

 Hounds arc at fault, and the huntsman is convinced 

 that his fox is "forrad." He tells his whipper-in to 

 get " forrad " quietly, while he casts his hounds 

 " forrad," letting them hunt every yard of the ground, 

 The Master, however, disapproves of the cast, and 

 commences to blow his horn. The huntsman may 

 pretend to be deaf, but the hounds have not been edu- 

 cated to simulate a sudden want of hearing. To them 

 the sound of the horn is a word of command, which 

 they must obey, though they may be on the point 

 of scenting out the line of a hunted fox. In certain 

 instances the whipper-in has actually signalled that he 

 has viewed the fox, and the huntsman has lifted the 

 hounds towards him, when the Master, ignorant of 



