150 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



Oil the hillside near Billesdon windmill — gladly laving- 

 aside crook and billhook to throw all their energies into 

 voice and gesture and assume a part in "killing the fox." 

 If hunting ever ceases in the merry Midlands (of which in 

 all seriousness and sobriety we may surely hope it may 

 not) it will certainly never be through the ill-will of the 

 labouring classes on the spot. Every villager learns to 

 throw a view halloa, I'rom the hour that as a schoolboy he 

 cheers the jaded and irresponsive " hoonter " — or, as 

 they often term him in his w^orking robe, the " redman " 

 on his homeward way. Every ploughman (a vocation, 

 however, that in the grass countries has but a limited 

 demand) or farm labourer, whatever may be his employ, 

 looks to having his task pleasantly interrupted by horn 

 and hound at intervals during the winter months — and 

 never fails at once to break off work, lending all his 

 interest to the passing chase. (I cannot, by the way, 

 resist embodying in a brief parenthesis a summary of 

 occupation given me not many days ago, by a young 

 rustic working in the state of life in which he found 

 himself called. He earned a shilling a day, too — con- 

 siderably more than an ensign or sub-lieutenant when 

 his kit is paid for. " What was his chief job on the 

 farm?" Answer — "Knocking clods." "Good boy. 

 And what else ? " Answer — " Gathering clods." Now, 

 I appeal to that worshipful body, the Schoolboard — does 

 not a round of labour, so comprehensive, varied and 

 intellectual, of itself demand an occasional break, if only 

 to prevent the overstrained mind of the clodhopper fiDm 

 slipphig back to the level whence it is sujiposed to have 



