THE RUNNER 173 



for his living, and who does it. Wealthy men too 

 frequently grumble when asked for an extra ^25 

 subscription to meet a pressing emergency, and 

 say they pay plenty for their sport ; but who pays 

 so much for his sport as the " runner " of whom I 

 am writing ? The loss of a day's work means to 

 him that he has to make up for it by working 

 when others are resting, or that he or his family 

 will probably want something that they ought to 

 have. To his credit be it said that the latter is of 

 very rare occurrence. And then this man does 

 many little services for the hunt for which he is 

 never paid. He will go a mile or two out of his 

 way to open earths that might and probably would 

 otherwise remain unopened till the next day, and 

 in countless ways he is always proving of use. 



It has always been a wonder to me how the man 

 manages to get over the distances which he travels, 

 and with apparently so little fatigue to himself. 

 He frequently has from twelve to sixteen miles to 

 walk to covert ; he will be out all day, and he 

 will tramp the same distance home at night. He 

 is not the man to stop at a roadside public, 

 regaling the ears of the taproom visitors with 

 accounts of sport and tales of sportsmen. He 

 will have his pint of beer, for which he will always 

 offer to pay himself, drop a curt word or two as 

 to whether sport has been good or bad, and 

 trudge off homewards, for probably there is a 

 pair of boots to be mended or finished, for your 

 runner of this class is somehow very frequently a 

 cordwainer. 



When you can get him to talk, our friend is 

 entertaining indeed. But he has a rooted aversion 

 to being " interviewed," and when any one attempts 



