The Hunting Year 



rades, and the huntsman's " Whoo whoop " 

 rings out clear and shrill, and startles the distant 

 ploughman wending homewards. 



There is a ten mile ride home for us ; it is a 

 soaking wet night; and we have not the re- 

 collection of a great day to enliven us on the 

 road. As a matter of fact it has been below the 

 average. But, kind reader, if you throw in your 

 lot with " the glad throng that rides laughing 

 along," you will have many such days ; and if 

 you learn to appreciate what is good in them; 

 to rejoice with the huntsman in the triumph of 

 his hounds under circumstances of exceptional 

 difficulty ; to see all the points, which, trivial in 

 themselves, go for eventual victory; to see 

 where the fox was really killed;* so shall you 



* As a race is often won a long way from the 

 winning-post, even when it seems a near thing at 

 the finish, so very frequently a fox is lost or killed 

 long before the end of a run. That little indis- 

 cretion of yours, dear reader, when in your anxiety 

 to cut down your best friend, you got a trifle too 

 near the hounds, and drove them on over the line, 

 was probably just what enabled the fox to reach 

 the main earths which were not stopped ! 



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