328 COVEKT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



THE DRAG. 

 Hark ! on the drag I hear their tuneful notes. 



The Druid wrote a chapter on " Stag, Flag, and Drag," and 

 a very interesting one it proved. I can scarcely hope the same 

 for mine, yet I trust I shall be forgiven devoting one to a chase 

 that every season affords a great deal of amusement to officers 

 and others so tied for time, tliat perhaps they could scarcely 

 procure it in any other way. Hunting a drag cannot be called 

 sport, and I never met with any one who dignified it by the 

 title ; but it may be very good fun for those to whom the real 

 pleasure of the chase consists solely in galloping and jumping. 

 Personally I would quite as soon ride after a drag well managed 

 as a deer turned from a cart ; there is just as much sport in one 

 as the other, and there is a sort of manly independence about 

 those who go out ostensibly after aniseed and red herrings, 

 which is wanting in the turned-out deer-hunt. They don't 

 ''make believe" at being sportsmen, but candidly and openly 

 show that their object is not hunting but riding, and they take 

 the readiest means to obtain the greatest amount of it in the 

 shortest time. " Let them ride a steeplechase," some one may 

 say ; but I must remind him of a proposal to make a race 

 across country between three very celebrated huntsmen, when 

 one, at least, of the trio averred that "he could not ride a yard 

 without music !" The same thing may influence not only 

 many of those who hunt with drag-hounds, but their horses 

 also, for it is by no means every animal that will go and fence 

 kindly without the excitement of hounds, though with some 



