i 4 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



Hounds were probably to meet at daybreak the 

 following morning, and if at a distant fixture that 

 might entail a couple of hours' riding in the dark, 

 whilst even if it were not a hunting day those of 

 our ancestors who lived in the country were early 

 risers. 



Hunt balls and hunt dinners were more common 

 a hundred years ago, and they were conducted on 

 different lines from what they generally are in the 

 present day. They had more of the family 

 gathering about them. Any decent man in the 

 Hunt was welcome to come and bring his wife 

 and daughters to the ball ; the price was within 

 the means of almost any man who could hunt ; an 

 enjoyable evening was spent, and the old-fashioned 

 Hunt ball was a factor which worked for the good 

 of the Hunt. The same may be said of the Hunt 

 dinner, which was by no means the formal and 

 stiff affair which a public dinner generally is in 

 these days. Perhaps it is impossible to revive 

 the Hunt ball and Hunt dinner on the old lines ; 

 perhaps it is undesirable to do so, even if it were 

 possible ; but I must own to having a weak corner 

 for them. They may belong to "those good 

 customs " which, if persistently indulged in, " cor- 

 rupt a world," but they were pretty phases of the 

 country life which was so enjoyable when the first 

 Duke of Cleveland hunted from Stocksfield-on- 

 Tyne to Ruffbrd in Nottinghamshire, and wakened 

 the echoes with his horn, where Bedale, and Lord 

 Zetland's, and York and Ainsty, and Bramham 

 and the Badsworth, and other packs keep "the 

 tambourine a-rowling," to use the words of James 

 Pigg, from October to April. 



"The old order changeth," as I have said, but 



