ON HOLLOAING 359 



silent from " morn to dewy eve." He makes a 

 good deal of noise when drawing, and when he 

 has found his fox, horn and voice are never quiet 

 till he has killed him. I will give him his due, 

 and say that his hounds are in good control, that 

 they come to him freely and without any of that 

 rating which is so grating to the ear of a man who 

 loves the foxhound, and I have been asked how it 

 could matter whether he were silent or noisy when 

 his hounds knew what he meant and obeyed him ? 

 Perhaps had he been hunting alone or with a small 

 field it would not have made much matter. But, 

 unfortunately, there was a large field always out 

 with him, and the field, as fields will, took to 

 emulating their huntsman in the way of making a 

 noise. The result was that hounds lost many a 

 fox which they should have killed, and if ever 

 they ran one into a covert which was well supplied 

 there was holloaing at every point of the compass, 

 the huntsman added to the chorus with horn and 

 voice, and the result was a change of foxes. 



But to a quiet huntsman incessant holloaing is 

 an annoyance and a hindrance, and I would have 

 my young friends know that a quiet huntsman is 

 by no means necessarily a slow one or even a silent 

 one. A man may be very quiet and yet be very 

 cheery, and a quiet man is always cheery at the 

 right time. 



It is curious how opinions change respecting 

 what is the correct thing to do. I can remember 

 some trencher-fed packs in my early boyhood, 

 where every man hunted his own hound, though, 

 of course, there was a nominal huntsman, and 

 many of the field carried a horn. It is needless 

 for me to point out what a sweet confusion 



