HUXTIXG TO RIDE AND RIDING TO HUNT 23 



work with little or no help, casting themselves, and 

 accounting for their thirty-five or forty couple of foxes 

 annually, their music alone being worth travelling a 

 hundred miles to hear. The horse-dealing, galloping, 

 lifting master of hounds is a nuisance to everyone 

 except the racing men, who care nothing and know 

 less about the beauty, science, and patience and per- 

 fection requisite to show what in its full and true 

 meaning is termed 'hunting,' Alas! out of the 

 hundreds who nowadays appear at some of the 

 meets I know so well, how few are there who know 

 anything at all about the real thing, and how many 

 come only for the sake of showing off some spirited 

 horse fit only for a rush in a race! In some packs I 

 know of, the majority only go out nowadays to ride or 

 to sell their horses, and in one pack the master was 

 the worst of the lot, and was for ever bruising along to 

 keep up the name of his horses, without regard to any- 

 thing else. His unfortunate huntsman must often have 

 felt that such a performance was not worthy of the 

 name of ' sport,' but more suited to the racecourse, or 

 a fox and a brace of greyhounds. However, as a rule, 

 I am bound to admit that masters of hounds are genuine 

 sportsmen, and a very trying time they have of it with 

 the large fields of the present day, especially near towns. 

 What a master has at times to put up with under such 

 circumstances a genuine sportsman alone can realize. 

 There is one consolation, however, and that is that the 

 men who come out solely for the sake of riding and 

 galloping about are nearly always the first to come to 

 grief What with runs spoiled by the wilful unruliness 

 of the field, hounds ridden over, etc., a master's temper 

 can indeed be sorely tried. 



