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CHAPTEE X 



BLACK AND WHITE 



lUe potens sui 

 Lastusque deget, cui licet in diem 

 Dixisse, Vixi : eras vel atra 

 Nube polum Pater occupato 

 Vel sole puro. 



Sporting literature often suffers from a surfeit of success. 

 In the jungle, on the river or the hill, and especially in the 

 hunting-field, the reader's mouth is over-satisfied with good 

 things. As an antidote I will cite one of my own personal 

 experiences of the Harrow country. For the most part these 

 are dismal and ineffectual to a degree. With the exception of 

 one day, when we met at Harefield, and ran into a detest- 

 able country — ' the wrong way,' with which all beasts of the 

 chase are so conversant — we only met once in the Harrow 

 country of famous tradition during my Mastership, so I re- 

 member this occasion very distinctly. Like my more fortu- 

 nate predecessors, I too had received several assurances from 

 individuals of welcome and goodwill. It was a dry time, 

 and an experiment seemed worth trying. I am horribly 

 afraid of wire ; not on account of the horsemen, who, in 

 the well-laid-out environs of London, may be trusted to 

 take remarkably good care of themselves, but on account 

 of the deer and the hounds. The latter can of course be 

 stopped, but there is nothing more sickening than the sight 

 of a good deer doing his generous best in a wired country ; 

 and the Master of a pack of staghounds who knowingly 



