CHAPTER XXVIII 



HUNTING ON FOOT 



" Fox-hunting on foot is but labour in vain," 

 says Egerton Warburton in that spirit-stirring 

 song, " Oulton Lowe," and who is there that has 

 laboured in breeches and boots over a deep fallow, 

 the boots just a trifle small, i.e. tight, that will be 

 found to deny the fact ? Yet there is a good deal 

 of sport of a very enjoyable kind seen on foot, and 

 when a man is young and active and his wind is 

 good he can get a lot of enjoyment out of a day 

 on shanks' mare, and see more sport than the 

 man who has never seen the sport of kings save 

 from the back of a 200-guinea hunter wots of. 

 Then there are hunting countries, though perhaps 

 your sportsman who hunts in the so-called fashion- 

 able centres may scarcely think them worthy of the 

 name, where hunting on foot is the only way in 

 which the wily fox can be pursued. The Blen- 

 cathra, the Eskdale (Cumberland), the Coniston, 

 the Ullswater, and the Mellbrake are amongst the 

 packs which show the best of sport with the " girt 

 greyhound foxes " of the Cumberland and West- 

 moreland fells. " And who can tell how hard it 

 is to climb " those steep hillsides at any pace, let 

 alone at the swinging trot affected by the hardy 



