CHAPTER XLV 



MEN WHO HUNT A LITTLE 

 Have . . . made a little taste. — 2 Henry IV. 



It may fairly be said that in a country where 

 hunting is looked upon as the winter sport of all 

 others, the man who wants to stand well with his 

 neighbours will not own to having no sympathy 

 with fox-hunters. However great may be the 

 disadvantages under which he labours, he will 

 " affect a virtue if he has it not," and to do 

 him justice he generally has it in a more or less 

 modified degree. For there is something very 

 fascinating about the sport of kings, and hunting 

 enthusiasm is as "catching" as the measles. So 

 many a man whose appearance at once tells you 

 that he is by no means at home in the saddle, and 

 who would as soon think of committing a murder 

 as of riding at a flight of fourhole posts and rails 

 of his own free will, finds himself occasionally in 

 the hunting field. He is almost always a man 

 who takes to the sport late in life, so that much 

 cannot be expected of him in the way of witching 

 the world with noble horsemanship. If hounds 

 commence their cub-hunting operations anywhere 

 in his immediate neighbourhood, he is sure to be 

 seen at the meet, and he will not unlikely be busy 



