HUNTING LADIES 191 



just in front of him. He said nothing at the 

 time, but if that lady thought she was going to 

 escape without a reproof she was very much mis- 

 taken. When the fox was killed he rode up to 

 the delinquent, and anything more cutting than 

 his quiet sarcasm I have never heard in the hunting 

 field. " If you cannot control your horse," he 

 said, " your friends should get you another or see 

 that this one is so bitted that you can hold 

 him. There is no excuse for you crossing any- 

 one at a fence as you did me. Had your 

 horse fallen I might have killed you. It would 

 not have been my fault, it is true, but it would 

 have destroyed my pleasure in the sport for 

 ever. In hunting, as in other walks of life, it 

 is your duty to consider others." Then raising 

 his hat he left the lady, who, I am glad to 

 say, profited by the advice which had been given 

 her. 



It is a mistake to think that ladies know 

 nothing about the minutiae of hunting, and that 

 woodcraft to them is an unknown mystery. I 

 think that there is quite as large a percentage of 

 ladies who go hunting who can tell you when 

 hounds have a line and what hounds have it, when 

 the young ones are running riot, and when by 

 some unlucky accident they are running heel, as 

 there is of the sterner sex, and I know several 

 ladies whose word I would take, were I a hunts- 

 man, quite as soon as that of any man. Such 

 knowledge is unnecessary and unladylike, I hear 

 some prudish-minded person say. Not at all, I 

 say. Anything worth doing is worth doing well ; 

 the woman who studies woodcraft and understands 

 the niceties of the sport not only enjoys it more, 



