POINTS OF ETIQUETTE 137 



half an hour, and then came a check. " Why on 

 earth is he making such a cast ? The fox has 

 never gone there," said the chorus when the 

 huntsman took hold of his hounds and made the 

 ground good all round. "It is patent to any one 

 that he went for Switchington Gorse," said one 

 very clever gentleman. But he had done nothing 

 of the sort. He had gone to ground where 

 hounds ceased running, and they had laid at the 

 earth ; but the huntsman made the cast to see 

 whether the fox had only tried the earth and 

 gone on, as foxes will do on occasions, or whether 

 he was in it. My firm opinion is that the gentle- 

 man who held that Switchington Gorse was the 

 fox's point believes to this day that he went to 

 that famous covert. 



Some years ago I was hunting with a famous 

 pack of hounds. It was with our afternoon fox, 

 and scent had changed for the worse, and even on 

 grass hounds could not run. Patiently the hunts- 

 man hunted on for upwards of an hour, hounds 

 unable to do more than own a line, and for most 

 of the time they could not speak to it. Then a 

 heavy shower fell, and hounds having worked up 

 to their fox, rattled him along merrily for fifteen 

 minutes, and rolled him over. I expressed my 

 pleasure at seeing hounds hunt so closely and well, 

 and then a gentleman who was present put in a 

 criticism. "You are getting your hounds too 

 light tongued," said he to the huntsman. That 

 worthy made not much reply, but as we rode 

 home together he said to me, a propos of nothing 

 in particular, " There's a good deal of ignorance 

 covered by a red coat sometimes, sir." 



