legs to ascertain what
mischances may have occurred. He takes it all easily, as men always take
matters of business in which they are quite at home. At the end of the
run he sits mounted as quietly as he did at the meet, and has none
of that appearance of having done something wonderful, which on such
occasions is so very strong in the faces of the younger portion of the
pink brigade. To the farmer his day's hunting is very pleasant, and by
habit is even very necessary; but it comes in its turn like market-day,
and produces no extraordinary excitement. He does not rejoice over an
hour and ten minutes with a kill in the open, as he rejoices when he
has returned to Parliament the candidate who is pledged to repeal of the
malt-tax; for the farmer of whom we are speaking now, though he rides
with constancy, does not ride with enthusiasm.

O fortunati sua si bona norint farmers of England! Who in the town is
the farmer's equal? What is the position which his brother, his uncle,
his cousin holds? He is a shopkeeper, who never has a holiday, and does
not know what to do with it when it comes to him; to whom the fresh air
of heaven is a stranger; who lives among sugars and oils, and the dust
of shoddy, and the size of new clothing. Should such an one take to
hunting once a week, even after years of toil, men would point their
fingers at him and whisper among themselves that he was as good as
ruined. His friends would tell him of his wife and children; and,
indeed, would tell him truly, for his customers would fly from him.
But nobody grudges the farmer his day's sport! No one thinks that he is
cruel to his children and unjust to his wife because he keeps a nag for
his amusement, and can find a couple of days in the week to go among his
friends. And with what advantages he does this! A farmer will do as much
with one horse, will see as much hunting, as an outside member of
the hunt will do with four, and, indeed, often more. He is his own
head-groom, and has no scruple about bringing his horse out twice a
week. He asks no livery-stable keeper what his beast can do, but tries
the powers of the animal himself, and keeps in his breast a correct
record. When the man from London, having taken all he can out of his
first horse, has ridden his second to a stand-still, the farmer trots up
on his stout, compact cob, without a sign of distress. He knows that the
condition of a hunter and a greyhound should not be the same, and that
his ho