380 THE QUORN HUNT 



Fool, again the dream, the fancy ! but I know my words are stuff, 

 I who hold the swell provincial lower than the Melton Muff. 



I to hunt with fustian jackets ! my remaining years to pass — 

 With the refuse of Protection, in a land devoid of grass. ^ 



Tied to one perpetual woman, what to me were soil or clime? 

 I who never could endure the same for ten days at a time. 



I who held it better to pursue the patriarchal plan 

 Than tamely to submit to a monopoly of man ? 



Hark ! my merry comrades call me, and Jack Morgan blows his horn, 

 I to whom their foolish pastime is an object of my scorn. 



Can a sight be more disgusting, more absurd a paradox, 

 Than two hundred people riding madly at one fox ? 



Will his capture on the morrow any satisfaction bring ? 



I am sham'd thro' all my nature to have done so flat a thing. 



Weakness, to be wroth with weakness, I'm an idiot for my pains ; 

 Nature made for every sportsman an inferior set of brains. 



Not in vain the distance beckons — what's that skirting the hill side ? 

 Tis THE FOX ! I'll bet a hundred— forward ! forward! let me ride. 



I'm before them and they curse me, but no matter, go along; 

 Better fifty yards before the hounds than ten behind the throng. 



Oh, I hear you ! you may holloa ! but my spirit knows no bounds ; 

 Curse the scent and blast the master, rot the huntsman, d — n the 

 hounds. 



Ha ! ha ! ha ! was that an oxer? What ? old Rambler? is he dead ? 

 Never mind ! Pick up the pieces ; he was mortal ; go ahead ! 



They've lost him, and I did it ! Oh, of course, I always do ! 

 Here's Sir Richard — black as thunder ; I'll evaporate, adieu ! 



Plough the grass ; erect wire fences ; shoot the foxes ; freeze and snow ; 

 Yes, I can catch the train at Leicester : so to Euston Square I go. 



When hounds meet in towns the occasion is always 

 popular, and though the kennel address is " Quorn, 

 Louo-hboroueh," the inhabitants of the town see as 

 a rule little or nothing of hounds. Councillor Mayo, 

 however, came to the conclusion that it would not be 

 a bad idea if Lord Lonsdale could be induced to meet 



