10 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



Bute's from all parts of the hunt, and I remember one warm 

 day very late in the sesison, during Mr. Maynard's mastership, 

 when hounds worked a line very slowly from Rackwoodside, 

 taking nearly an hour and a half to cover a distance which 

 I saw Mr. Rogerson's hounds cover in thirty-five minutes three 

 of four years ago. It was a bit of patient and very fine 

 hound work, and as it was almost the last day of the season 

 the Master was very anxious to kill the fox. He actually 

 rode into the covert to see if an earth he knew of was closed, 

 and, finding it was, he came back to the customary corner, 

 where the field was drawn up. Luncheon was tackled, men 

 got off their horses and lounged about in warm sunshine, and 

 from the depths of the w^ood the occasional note of a hound 

 was heard. Time passed, and the notes grew fewer. Many 

 of the field departed, but the Master was still anxious, and 

 at length at his request I went with the late Mr. Alan Green- 

 well (then secretary of the hunt) to look for hounds and 

 huntsman. It is a big wood with many rides, and we sea^rched 

 for quite a quarter of an hour for now there was no sound at 

 all. At length, in the heart of the wood, we suddenly dropped 

 on a veritable tableau. Hounds were basking in the sun in 

 an open space. The huntsman's horse was fastened to a tree 

 by its bridle, and the huntsman himself was fast asleep with 

 his back against the trunk of the tree, and a suspicious- looking 

 bottle lying on the grass beside him. We woke him up, and 

 did not give him away at the time; but after Mr. Maynard 

 had been obliged to make a change the story leaked out. The 

 huntsman in question is no longer living, and there is no need 

 to mention his name. He could hunt a fox well, but latterly 

 his sobriety was not to be relied upon. It was this same hunts- 

 man, by the way, that was the cause of an oft-told story con- 

 cerning Mr. Maynard — as great an enthusiast as ever breathed. 

 Hounds had found at Bumhopeside, and ran very nicely to 

 the top of Charlaw Fell, where they checked. The huntsman 

 came up and cast them, where there was a most formidable 

 fence, close to a gate. Hounds went through the fence; the 

 huntsman rede to the gate, found it locked, and with the eyes 

 of his Master and the field upon him rode at the fence, which 

 which was really something quite out of the ordinary. He 

 went at it hard enough, and the thorns closed behind him and 



