394 



THE BEST OF THE FUN 



their tongues furiously up to the point where the horses' 

 footprints intervened. Here they were suddenly at fault, 

 even the mysterious yellow bitch on a visit, who had led 

 them all day. Yet their game was barely out of view. 

 And, though held quietly across the field upon the very 

 footsteps of their fox, they could own to no line until well 

 beyond the track of horsemen, when on they went merrily 

 enough. 



There is no reason to suppose that the scent of a horse 

 is, to their notion, any less sweet than the trail of a deer. 

 A blacksmith's shop will of itself almost answer the question 

 as regards the power of odour belonging to the equine 

 foot. We know well that the vis odora caniim — with which 

 phrase the poet could have been alluding to nothing else 

 than a strong-smelling sheepdog — that this will completely 

 put off the best pack of hounds that ever tried to dis- 

 criminate between a fox and a chasing collie. Why should 

 horses be less capable of spoiling sport ? 



And the foot-scent is not all. As we all consider we 

 have learned, there are some days on which hounds hunt 

 only by foot-scent, others on which they rely wholly on 

 body-scent as it floats above ground, or is even carried 

 down wind to an appreciable distance. Thus we may 

 often be — too often are — standing recklessly, or worse 

 still moving onward, up-wind of the puzzling pack, while 

 our horses steam hotly, and the vapour floats over hounds 

 in a dense cloud. There are moments when in a grass 

 country a Master of Hounds is often driven to madness, 

 and, drifting, will swear aloud that the penalties of posi- 

 tion such as his are heavier than mortal man can bear, 

 or than are balanced by sweets of office or pride of place. 

 The two simple rules, viz. of giving full room to hounds 

 in a road, and of standing clear of them when at fault, 

 are not only the most difficult to enforce, but it must in 

 all honesty be allowed, the most difficult to carry out, 

 among the crowded fields of the Midlands. The pressure 

 is ever from behind, and the hindmost know nothing of, 

 and care less for, the obligation at that moment weighing 

 upon those who happen to have arrived before them. 



My sermon, in lieu of chronicle, takes another turn. 



