350 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



gallops in the past and of high hopes for the 

 future. 



What a merry band we were, it seems but 

 yesterday, that rode along this road a quarter of a 

 century ago, and how thinned are our numbers. 

 One has taken to miserly habits, perhaps, and 

 thinks of nothing but his investments, never a 

 true sportsman this, you would say, even when at 

 his best, and probably you would be right, though 

 we have Miser Elwes as an example of the con- 

 trary. Another has taken to politics, unlucky 

 man ; many are dead, more have lost their nerve, 

 and with their nerve their liking for the sport. 

 But you who are left, keen as of yore, what a 

 glorious band of brothers are you ! ready to have 

 a shy with the young ones yet, and having a little 

 more judgment than the gallant bruisers who are 

 fifteen or twenty years your junior, you not in- 

 frequently score off them, to your own delight 

 and their discomfiture. But these said youngsters 

 crowd round you as you ride to covert on the 

 opening morning — that is, if they be of the true 

 hunting stock, anxious to know what took place 

 in the " brave days of old." To them anecdotes 

 of a bygone day are ever welcome, and they never 

 tire of listening to stories of the prowess of hunts- 

 men, or the doings of Tuneful and Solomon, and 

 others of the heroes of old. 



There is, I take it, always something of the 

 holiday character about an opening meet. The 

 carriage element is always greatly in evidence, and 

 at the opening meet you see many people who 

 perhaps never attend another fixture unless it be 

 the last. The Master is never in a hurry on this 

 occasion, and he gives the late ones plenty of law. 



