330 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



known— stride for stride with my friend, and flying tlie little 

 fences as we came to tliem for three or four miles, until a road, 

 or some obstacle of that sort, compelled us to pull up. "I think 

 that horse of yours gallops," remarked my neighbour ; " why 



don't you enter and run him at ?" "Because I don't 



think he would try a yard unless he had been with hounds 

 on that day," I replied. However, we had some further con- 

 versation, and the consequence was he agreed to give me another 

 gallop, and see what could be done. It came off, he riding a 

 horse not nearly so fast as the opponent of Hall Court, on 

 which he went right away from me from the start, and at the 

 end of a short distance my nag stuck his toes in, and refused 

 to gallop another yard. Not long afterwards, chance brought 

 us together with Mr. Joseph Anderson's stag-hounds ; we both 

 went on the wrong side of a small covert, lost our places, and sat 

 down to regain them, and once more I could go as fast as he could. 

 This will serve to show that a drag may at times be desirable 

 where a steeplechase would not. A great advantage in hunt- 

 ing a drag is that you can go just where you like, and if the 

 owners and occupiers of land are conciliated and give their 

 consent, there is not the slightest need that it should occasion 

 any heart-burning or ill-will. This is a very easy matter in most 

 instances, where a little tact is used, and, if there is a queer 

 customer in the neighbourhood, his boundaries can be avoided, 

 and no harm is done. Get a good man to run the drag ; don't 

 make the scent too strong — as I have sometimes seen done ; 

 lock all the gates in the line, and then you may ride to your 

 heart's content, without doing harm to any one but your 

 horse or yourself. Should you happen to cripple a hound, put 

 him out of his misery at once ; the chance is that he is worth 

 nothing, or he would not be there. It may appear strange, but 

 I have known men so clever in running a drag that the majority 

 of the field — men who took no particular notice of what was 

 going forward — would never know but a fox or hare was before 

 them. Still I am bound to admit that such men are rare. I 



