286 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



reason, for " Uncle Tom's Cabin," that of being next the Bible), 

 know you better than you knew yourself, and, despite the cloth, 

 I am not sure that there was not a little of that worldly vanity 

 peeping out in the first passage I have quoted, which makes us 

 now affect to care notliing about hare-hunting. I have said in a 

 former chapter that fox-hunting, as now enjoyed, is the outcome 

 of civilization, cleared forests, and improved farming, and that 

 now it is the most universal sport amongst us. In former days 

 the hare occupied a similar position, and, as she was always to 

 be found in the open, hunting her formed the sport of the bulk 

 of the people. The stag and buck were reserved for king, 

 nobles, and the high and mighty of the land, but the hare was 

 open to the squire or rich yeoman who could afford to keep a 

 pack of hounds, or " cry of dogs," as it was called amongst 

 them, and no style of chase was so much esteemed for getting 

 horses into condition to run trail scents and matches as that of 

 the hare. 



Gervase Markham says in his "Cavalrie," published 1616, 

 speaking of the hare, " But to conclude and come to the chase, 

 which is, of all chases, the best for the purpose whereof we are 

 now entreating, it is the chase of the hare, which is both swift 

 and pleasant, and of long endurance. It is a sport ever readie, 

 equally distributed, as well to the wealthy farmer as to the 

 great gentleman. It hath its beginning contrary to the stag 

 and bucke ; for it begins at Michealmass, when they end, and is 

 out of date after April, when they first come into season." A 

 century later, as I have before shown, the fox and hare had 

 reversed places in public estimation, and from that time the 

 manher and bolder diversion has held the lead. There is no 

 doubt that a great deal of the sarcasm vented on the chase of 

 the hare arises from men going out to hunt without in reality 

 knowing what they go to do or see. If I meet a man got up 

 within an inch of his life, and mounted on a two hundred 

 guinea hunter, going to meet harriers, I at once put him down 

 for a fool, unless I know that he is merely about to give the 



