2IO THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



Cabinet Minister or a stable-lad, works with the laud- 

 able ambition of obtaining distinction in the future. 

 If you deprive your Hunt servants of the chance of 

 obtaining promotion, you will not get the proper class 

 of boys to enter hunting-stables, and you will have to 

 search for your recruits in the yards of fifth-rate livery- 

 stable keepers. 



" Doubt not thou, brave boy, Fll stand 

 To-day, for thee ? " 



But it is imperative that Masters of Hounds should 

 hold out more encouragement to lads to enter their 

 establishments than are afforded at the present time. 

 The Master of Hounds may retort that he is practically 

 the servant of a Hunt Committee, and that his first 

 obligation is to study the prejudices of the influential 

 members of the Hunt Committee. But what per- 

 centage of truth is there in this retort ? The people 

 whom the Master has to please are the large covert 

 owners and the tenant-farmers, so far as sport is con- 

 cerned, though the Hunt Committee may arrange the 

 financial details of the Hunt. 



Huntsmen complain that they are underpaid, con- 

 sidering the work which they have to do in all sorts of 

 weather ; but in regard to this complaint, Scott did 

 not wish to speak at length, as, upon his retirement, he 

 had received a monetary testimonial from the followers 

 of the Albrighton Hounds. Tom Firr, on his com- 

 pulsory retirement after the fateful morning of 

 October 18, 1898, when he fell on his head, through 

 h's horse pecking on landing over a stone wall in the 



