A MASTER OF OTTERHOUNDS 245 



is always in their midst ; he shares their difficulties 

 and their toils. The endurance of man and hound 

 is severely taxed, and their feet may be sorely hurt 

 by such ordeals as five miles to the meet, a ten miles 

 draw, and seven miles home. Sometimes you are in 

 the water with them, wading or even swimming. Some- 

 times, if you think that they want blood — and yoii must 

 be the best judge — you give them their otter ; at others, 

 you help find their quarry. They depend on their 

 huntsman to show them sport ; they love to hear his 

 voice and horn cheering them to the echo. They 

 know that he trusts them and they scorn to play him 

 false. Out with them, home with them, not riding 

 above their level on a horse whose heels they dread, 

 but walking among them, beside them, where they can 

 thrust their tan muzzles into your coat tails or into 

 your hand, seeking the biscuit which they know by 

 experience sometimes lurks there. Such a pack, as 

 they look up in the Master's face, their eyes bright with 

 love and confidence, will not require much whip. A 

 crop and thong are not, as some folks seem to imagine, 

 part and parcel of the proper outfit of a follov/er of 

 otterhounds, though I have heard of a beagle pack of 

 but ten couple being " aided " to hunt by no fewer 

 than four whippers-in ! 



The Master will in some countries find hares, or 

 " great joskins," as a Suffolk sportsman calls them, a 

 nuisance, for they have a knack of jumping up in view 

 when hounds have perhaps been drawing the whole 

 day without a sniff of anything to hunt. Then, indeed, 

 he longs for a horse on which to stop them. Otherwise, 



