164 THE BEST SEASON ON RECOED. 



at all events only sucli trouble as an active Hon. Sec. 

 is competent to deal witli. The visitors indeed find 

 most of the sinews of war. Did they not do so, it is only 

 fair to assert that their j^resence would possess com- 

 paratively few compensating advantages, to set against 

 the difficulties brought about by their numbers — in a 

 country by no means best suited to the infliction of an 

 immense field of horsemen. But — without raking up a 

 catalogue of stumbling-blocks over which an incon- 

 siderate and thoughtless Master of Hounds might find 

 himself tripping at any step — it is sufficient to point out 

 that his dynasty, to be stable and lasting, must be 

 founded on an attention to men and detail that the many 

 who regard the existence of an M.F.H. as a quiet and 

 comfortable autocracy would never imagine. There is 

 no harder-worked, or more sorely-tried, official in the 

 kingdom than the Master of a subscription pack in a 

 popular country. From this work and these trials Mr. 

 Coupland has never shrunk, but has combated them with 

 a success so widely known that encomium at my hands 

 would be only impertinence — but for which every member 

 of the Quorn Hunt gladly confesses to deep and lasting- 

 gratitude. 



Reader ! (I am now addressing only the reader at a 

 distance.) How gladly would you, and I, have seen that 

 gallop on Friday, have been lifted in the whirl of its 

 quick delight out of the day-to-day stolidness of mere 

 being, have breathed Its ecstasy, and shared in its 

 chances. You are perhaps biding your time in some 

 far-off land, till your turn comes round for pink and pig- 



