4 SKETCHES IN THE HUNTING FIELD. 



artistic questions, a causcur who adds a special charm to 

 the dinner-table over which he presides with such genial 

 hospitality, his Lordship is never so much at home, so 

 thoroughly satisfied with himself and the world in 

 general, as when seated in his saddle listening for the 

 repetition of the note which proclaims that Wanton's 

 suspicions are correct and that Woldsman heartily 

 agrees with him. 



Lord Wiltshire first came to hunt in the same way 

 that ducks first came to swim or swallows to fly — by the 

 promptings of nature ; and as an inborn knowledge aids 

 the efforts of these bipeds to make their own way in the 

 world, so did it enable the Marquis to make his way 

 across country by the aid of his pony. His sires had 

 done the same before him, as pictures from the hands of 

 many painters of various periods give evidence on the 

 walls of his hall ; and with, at times, remarkable 

 success, as trophies of the chase, abnormally huge or 

 curiously coloured masks, a splendid dog-fox and a 

 ferocious wolf* w^hich have found their last homes in 

 plate-glass cases, together with other emblems of trium- 

 phant woodcraft, abundantly testify. 



In those early days his contemporaries protest — and 

 grow very angry with you if you don't believe it — that 

 the hounds knew the brave boy who, clad in his little 

 green, gold-laced coat, sat his pony so firmly and easily, 

 and, by some mysterious instinct, recognised in him the 

 embryo M.F.H. who would cheer on their descendants 



♦ The result of a visit to the Pyrenean district. 



