The Hunting Year 



took no notice of it. " I wonder why Jim is 

 not going," I remarked unthinkingly, for- 

 getting for the moment that the gentleman 

 I addressed possessed the critical faculty in a 

 remarkable degree. " Oh," replied my friend, 

 K you'll never find Jim going anywhere where 

 there's a fox." As he said this, the huntsman 

 turned, touched his horn, and cast his hounds 

 back. I asked him what had happened, for I 

 was at one side of a big wood and he with 

 hounds was at the other for a few minutes, and 

 I did not see all that had taken place before 

 the halloa. ' There were two lines down the 

 wood," said he, " and that halloa was the fresh 

 fox and heel way of him." 



Going back for a moment to the saying of 

 many critics, that it is the business of the hunts- 

 man to show the best sport possible every day 

 he goes out, this may be freely admitted. It is 

 what the huntsman is there for. But I would 

 point out emphatically that the critic is there 

 to enjoy the sport provided, not to find fault; 

 and especially, not by his conduct, to spoil his 

 own sport, and, what is of much more con- 



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