WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 155 
they want to keep it. The old feeling coming up again 
—the land reasserting itself, Spain you see—down with 
feudalism, but let us have the game. Look down the 
long list of hounds kept in England, not one of which 
could get a run were it not for the good-will of the 
farmers, and indeed of the labourers. Hunting is a 
mimicry of the medizval chase, and this is the nine- 
teenth century of the socialist, yet every man of the 
fields loves to hear the horn and the burst of the hounds. 
Never was shooting, for instance, carried to such per- 
fection, perfect guns made with scientific accuracy, plans 
of campaign among the pheasants set out with diagrams 
as if there was going to be a battle of Blenheim in the 
woods. To be a successful sportsman nowadays you 
must be a well-drilled veteran, never losing presence of 
mind, keeping your nerve under fire—flashes to the left 
of you, reports to the right of you, shot whistling from 
the second line—a hero amid the ceaseless rattle of 
musketry and the ‘dun hot breath of war. Of old time 
the knight had to go throuzh a long course of instruc- 
tions. He had to acquire the manége of his steed, the 
use of the lance and sword, how to command a troop, 
and how to besiege a castle. Till perfect in the arts of 
war and complcte in the minutiz of falconry and all the 
terms of the chase, he could not take his place in the 
ranks of men. The English country gentleman who 
now holds something the same position socially as the 
knight, is not a sportsman till he can use the breech- 
loader with terrible effect at the pheasant-shoot, till he 
can wield the salmon-rod, or ride better than any 
Persian. Never were people—people in the widest 
sense—fonder of horses and dogs, and every kind of 
animal, than at the present day. The town has gone out 
into the country, but the country has also penetrated 
