THE INFLUENZA SCOURGE 63 



a whole cluster of gentlemen — some young and some old 

 enough to know better — dash forward also, as if in con- 

 test for first spear. Sport is then likely to be hindered 

 rather than accelerated. Let me not be taken as insinuat- 

 ing that we are greater fools here than in other hunting- 

 fields of more moderate proportion. Far from it ; we 

 rather like ourselves, taking pride in our sphere, and 

 arguing that, while the Shires are the arena on which to 

 see fox-hunting at its best, it is also that on which to meet 

 men, most of whom have elsewhere learned the business 

 of riding to hounds, and who are here turning the faculty 

 to fullest account. 



But numbers it is of course that frame the frequent 

 difficulty. A whipper-in — always supposing that he is as 

 good a rider as he should be (and, in my experience of the 

 Grass Countries, very seldom indeed fails to be) — has but 

 little trouble in doing his work when a run is fairly in 

 swing. On this point of keeping cattle and sheep off 

 hounds, and from foiling more ground than can possibly 

 be avoided, he can render more useful assistance to his 

 huntsman — towards making a run and killing a fox— than 

 in almost any other way. But he must do it very readily, 

 very rapidly, and very quietly. Some few of them cannot 

 keep their mouths shut ; but rate and bawl to a degree 

 that is irritating to hear — and if to you and me, how much 

 more to hounds, whose every nerve is intent upon holding 

 the delicate thread of their fox's course ? 



CHAPTER X 



THE INFLUENZA SCOURGE 



Friday Night, January 22, 1892. — Is it thawing? Is 

 breath coming into our nostrils, vitality into our existence ? 

 Will blood again circulate, and pulse once more beat high 

 to the bidding of the hound, and joy assert itself where 

 recently thought has been mournful and the air has been 

 black with melancholy ? Shall we shake off the incubus 

 of sadness, the atra cura of fell surrounding, the atmosphere 



