SrREES GOOD, BETTER, AND BEST. 167 



work. Without this, I must say, I consider a great 

 deal of the zest, anxiety, and beauty of hunting is 

 lost ; that is, to a man who enjoys seeing hounds, and 

 seeing them hunt ; and dearly I love a fox-hound. 



If I were asked, whether I did not consider fifty 

 men well mounted setting each other across a certain 

 distance of country a good spree, I should of course 

 say it was ; and if there were no hounds to be got at 

 I should join in it. Doing this with a drag would be 

 a far better spree ; and really if hounds after a fox 

 are only to race across country, it brings hunting 

 merely to spree the third and best. 



I have, in speaking of the pace hounds now go, 

 made use of the terms now and now-a-days : in doing 

 so, I mean it in reference to what I have heard they 

 did perhaps fifty years ago ; for I am not aware they go 

 faster than they always have gone since I first hunted. 

 I am quite clear that I never saw as good real hunt- 

 ing as my ancestors did. I have seen bolder and 

 better riding most decidedly : but as to hunting^ I 

 have seen more of that in one week's cub-hunting; 

 than in a whole season's regular hunting ; and I 

 fancy I really do know what hunting means. At all 

 events, I was blooded when only seven years old. It 

 may be said that practice never improves some peo- 

 ple : this may be my case ; if it is, I can't help it. 



Let us suppose hounds to have been streaming 

 away a burst of four or five miles, have come to a 

 check, and the Huntsman not at the moment up with 

 them. On his getting to them, it would be of the 

 first importance to him to ^know what hound or 

 hounds were leading, or rather had been. If it were 

 some particular hounds, he would know to all but a 

 certainty that so far his fox had come ; and, on 



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