242 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



rather than let them go the ten miles by road. There 

 was even a miller on the Blackwater who gladly suf- 

 fered the otters to take his ducklings, and who always 

 had an alfresco lunch ready for us when we passed by. 

 Hospitality and good fellowship follow a pack of otter- 

 hounds, which may be partly accounted for by the fact 

 of there being more time for social amenities than in 

 some other kinds of hunting. You can talk to Tom or 

 Jack as you walk along and watch hounds draw. When 

 you come to the local magnate, you can have hounds 

 held up or steadied while you pass the time of day, and 

 this without in any way interfering with sport, for until 

 hounds have found your time is your own. Once with 

 the Culmstock, and once again with the Essex, I saw 

 hounds stopped while the Master effusively thanked 

 a gesticulating individual on the further bank. In the 

 one case thanks were rendered for leave to draw ; in 

 the other for the offer of refreshment. Yet in both 

 instances there seems to have been some misunder- 

 standing, for it afterwards transpired that both were in 

 reality foaming with rage and warning hounds off. It 

 is to be hoped that they had a saving sense of humour 

 to enable them to appreciate the situation. 



But there were, and no doubt there still are, a capital 

 lot of farmers in Essex and Suffolk, and every now and 

 then one would come across an exiled west-country- 

 man, who had in the days of his youth followed Collier 

 or Cheriton. The hospitality of Littlebury Mill, on 

 the Roding, seemed nothing short of inexhaustible. 

 " There are fish enough for me," said the right good 

 owner, " and fish enough for the otters as well. And, 



