DRYixa up! 205 



liimself lifted forward out of his difficulties. The " silent 

 system " may be well euough, and is in theory at all 

 events quite unassailable. But a man who acts rigidly 

 on the silent system would assuredly never make a run 

 in droughty IMarch — unless you gave him an east wind, 

 a close woodland, an open moorland, or a straight fox in 

 a purely grass country. 



Friday last, March 21, was an illustration. The Quorn 

 had a long and excellent hunting run — all praise to the 

 hounds ; but more to the man who held them forward, 

 seldom by information, much by instinct, but more of 

 necessity quickly grasped. Bearing in mind tliat time 

 lost on the way was never to be regained, and that 

 hounds when unable to help themselves must be promptly 

 helped, he kept the ball rolling at a rate that never 

 allowed his fox breathini}: time — and so made a run 

 which in the hands of a dullard would have never even 

 budded. Great Dalby-cum-Gartree Hill had for the last 

 time been the formula. A vixen had dallied with the 

 pack in covert, while a traveller was packing his port- 

 manteau for a journey. Sex and deportment guaranteed, 

 he soon had the sound and substance of pursuit in his 

 wake, and we were climbing the Dalby and Burrough 

 heights, under a summer sun. How we panted up the 

 acclivities — perhaps even striding up the steepest ascents 

 on our own unaccustomed and unmuscular limbs — cau^-ht 

 breath on the Punchbowl, or arrived too late to catch 

 aught else than a glimpse of hounds and huntsman 

 vanishing beyond the farther rim, is but a variation of 



