THE BAEBAEIANS 3 



England, or rather the British Isles (for we must be just to poor 

 ould Oireland !) are the first, or indeed, in the narrower sense of the 

 term, the only hunting country in the world. It sounds like a 

 paradox to say that this is due to our poverty in beasts of chase ; 

 but it is the truth. Cave lion, elephant, rhinoceros, Irish elk, and 

 buffalo went out in the Stone Age. In the Middle Ages there were 

 deer and boar in abundance, and even wolves and bear. We have 

 now only the fox and the hare, except for Exmoor and the New 

 Forest, where wild red and fallow deer still survive. And so " bold 

 Eeynolds " has come into the kingdom of his " betters " ; but for this 

 poverty he would still have been treated as mean thieving vermin, 

 and the hunting of him had been as shabby a business as ferreting 

 rats out of a pig-stye. As things are, though still a thief he has 

 risen to be " Thief o' the World," and the hunting of him " the sport 

 o' kings and the image o' war with only twenty per cent o' the 

 danger " ; and we must own that Muster Reynolds has fairly won 

 his spurs if you consider the number, speed, and quality of the 

 hounds, and the skill and horsemanship that are needed to make 

 him cry " Capivi " ! And what a brave show the sportsman makes 

 clothed in scarlet with other delights, such as tops cleaned, as Mr. 

 Delme Eadcliffe did not say,^ with "champagne and abricot jam," 

 so that, as with King Solomon's throne, " the like has not been seen 

 in any kingdom." 



Compared with fox-hunting, the taking of the hare must always 

 seem somewhat tame, and the turning out of 



All the King's horses and all the King's men 

 to chase so small and timid a creature, may seem akin to break- 

 ing a butterfly on the wheel : nevertheless it must be confessed that to 

 Trace the circling mazes of the hare 



is truly, though the truth was said in sarcasm, " a highly scientific 

 amusement," and when " Sarah " is hunted afoot with beagles it is 

 more than that, it is good, hard, strenuous sport. One does not hunt 

 to run as thrusters hunt to ride, for plugging over a heavy plough 



1 What he did say, and I have it on the authority of his own grandson, was that 

 the then correct colour for tops was something between that of champagne and of 

 apricot jam. 



