250 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



beasts, except from the fox's point of view. They save 

 him, time after time. And you never discover the fact 

 more plainly than when his line has to be carried through 

 big covert. The driving hounds of one, two, and three 

 seasons are carrying the trail ahead. The old rascals 

 won't take their word for it ; but, with their bow-ivow-wow, 

 check the van and drag back the chase, when every 

 moment is of consequence and a fox is making the most 

 of it. They are «o/; but they are busy asserting their own 

 importance, and hindering the hunt. I have known it 

 to my cost ; and it " makes me squirm " (if plain pink 

 Anglo-Saxon be permissible) to mark the feat and its 

 result. Next to this, I hate and abhor a hound flinging 

 his stern and not his tongue. Draft him too, no matter 

 what his pedigree, his shape, or his other performance. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 



A HOT AND THIRSTY MARCH 



With the ground hard and the sun hot, why did we go 

 hunting on Friday and Saturday, March 24 and 25 of 

 1893 ? It might have been August for climate, while it was 

 March, to intensity, for soil. It was hazardous to beast 

 and expensive to man. More harm was imminent, more 

 wear and tear unavoidable, in days such as these than in 

 two months of fair working weather. 



We went out because hounds gave us the excuse — to 

 meet our friends, to discuss the past, to lament the present, 

 and chatter of the future — not, in most instances, with any 

 tangible hope of sport. " The game was played out, the 

 season was over. Pleasant enough to be strolling about 

 on horseback, instead of idling at home. Nobody but a 

 fool would think of riding over a country in its present 

 state," &c. &c. So they talked ; and so, with the in- 

 consistency that makes existence a merry-go-round, did 

 they all — the men whose ordinary badge is a cool white 

 collar — ride through the blazing heat, as if Pluto rather 

 than Pytchley claimed the initial on their button. Truth 



