the fact that other men
have not the same opportunities for observation which belong to him. A
master, however, who understands his business will generally consult a
farmer; and he will seldom, I think, or perhaps never, consult any one
else.

Always shake hands with your friend the farmer. It puts him at his ease
with you, and he will tell you more willingly after that ceremony what
are his ideas about the wind, and what may be expected of the day.
His day's hunting is to him a solemn thing, and he gives to it all his
serious thought. If any man can predicate anything of the run of a fox,
it is the farmer.

I had almost said that if any one knew anything of scent, it is the
farmer; but of scent I believe that not even the farmer knows anything.
But he knows very much as to the lie of the country, and should my
gentle reader by chance have taken a glass or two of wine above ordinary
over night, the effect of which will possibly be a temporary distaste
to straight riding, no one's knowledge as to the line of the lanes is so
serviceable as that of the farmer.

As to riding, there is the ambitious farmer and the unambitious farmer;
the farmer who rides hard, that is, ostensibly hard, and the farmer who
is simply content to know where the hounds are, and to follow them at
a distance which shall maintain him in that knowledge. The ambitious
farmer is not the hunting farmer in his normal condition; he is either
one who has an eye to selling his horse, and, riding with that view,
loses for the time his position as farmer; or he is some exceptional
tiller of the soil who probably is dangerously addicted to hunting as
another man is addicted to drinking; and you may surmise respecting him
that things will not go well with him after a year or two. The friend
of my heart is the farmer who rides, but rides without sputtering; who
never makes a show of it, but still is always there; who feels it to be
no disgrace to avoid a run of fences when his knowledge tells him that
this may be done without danger of his losing his place. Such an one
always sees a run to the end. Let the pace have been what it may, he is
up in time to see the crowd of hounds hustling for their prey, and to
take part in the buzz of satisfaction which the prosperity of the run
has occasioned. But the farmer never kills his horse, and seldom rides
him even to distress. He is not to be seen loosing his girths, or
looking at the beast's flanks, or examining his