56 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



After passing along country roads and bye- 

 vvays for some time, a bit of open ground is 

 reached ; it may be the purple moorland, or it may 

 be a well-wooded gentleman's park. " We'll let 

 them have a look at a hare or two," says the hunts- 

 man to his whippers-in, and forthwith you are 

 jogging over the country, hounds spreading well 

 about and the whippers-in on the alert for riot. 

 Up bounces a bumping old hare out of her form, 

 to run, after the manner of her kind under such 

 circumstances, the gauntlet of the whole pack. 

 That, you might think, if you had never been out 

 with your huntsman -friend before, would be a 

 moment of anxiety for him. But nothing of the 

 sort ; he knows his are not the hounds to run riot, 

 and that his youngsters are so well bred and so 

 well drilled that even the wildest of them that has 

 been well entered to hare when out at quarters, will 

 take no notice of the riot that is in front of them. 

 So the old hare bounces along, almost under the 

 very noses of the hounds, and the old hounds take 

 no notice of her whatever, as becomes their years 

 and their wisdom, whilst the young ones do nothing 

 more than look at her in idle wonder, not unmixed 

 with good-natured contempt, as who should say, 

 " We have better and nobler quarry than you to 

 follow." For it is one of the attributes of a well- 

 bred foxhound, descended from a line of disciplined 

 ancestors, that when those who have to do with 

 him have obtained his confidence he is soon taught 

 to avoid riot, especially if quiet methods are taken 

 with him, and there is not an overabundance of 

 noisy rating and whipcord. 



A special pleasure which attaches to these rides 

 is the corky way your horse carries you. Gay and 



