192 TJie PytcJiley Htmi, Past and Pi^esent. 



whicli we are speaking. Woe betide the adventurous 

 wisrbt who risked a short cut to the next ^' draw," or in 

 any way seemed out of the place which in the eyes of the 

 Master was his proper one. Even the homeward-bound 

 horseman, far on his road, met with a bad time if the 

 fox, chancing to cross his path^ altered his course, 

 and caused a momentary check. Turning round upon 

 one occasion in a Holdenby pasture to rebuke some 

 horsemen, who, as he thought, were following too 

 closely upon the hounds, the Master found himself 

 reproaching a small band of shorthorn brothers, who, 

 with whisk of tail and downward motion of the head, 

 seemed to treat with defiance the half-uttered remark of 

 the noble, but incensed huntsman. 



An experience of fifty years with Masters of all sorts 

 and conditions of temper, has taught the writer of these 

 pages that nothing is more conducive to sport as well as 

 to enjoyment in hunting than a thorough sympathy 

 between a Master of Foxhounds and his Field. When 

 in fault, the true sportsman, conscious of it, meekly 

 accepts the mouthful of winged words — eirewv irrepoevTcov 

 — in a different sense from that used by Home Tooke, 

 from the privileged quarter ; but the sneer and the scorn- 

 ful expression, when there is little occasion for them, 

 rankle in the memory, and sow the seeds of a future 

 collision. 



Lord Spencer, in his eagerness to omit nothing to 

 secure spurt, may occasionally have said what some may 

 have thought too much, but he studiously avoided the 

 use of bad language, and would have felt the greatest 

 regret if his words were unjustly applied, or if they 

 rankled in any one's mind. 



