The disaster of a sigh too much, or a kiss too long, was never more tragically exemplified.
Subsequently she was heard describing her visit to the kennels; amongst other details she noted with admiration that L., the huntsman, and I knew the name of each hound.
“Edith is wonderful!” she said fervently, “she knows them all! If she wants one of them she just says, ‘Here, Spot! Spot! Spot!’”
One gathered that the response to this classic hound name was instant.
Huntsmen have, in their way, almost as much to put up with as writers in the matter of cross-examination.
“And do you really know them? Each one?”
“And have they all got names?”
Then, upon explanation that there are enough names to go round, “And do you absolutely know them all?”
L., like Tom Corey, was unsustained by a sense of humour, and nothing but his lovableness enabled him to fulfil that most difficult of Christian duties, to suffer fools gladly.
“Lor, Master, what silly questions they do ask!” he has permitted himself to say sometimes, when all was over. Yet, as I have said, sympathy should also be reserved for the inquirers. Insatiable as is the average mother for admiration of her young, she is as water unto wine compared with a huntsman and his hounds. Few people have put a foot deeper into trouble than I have myself, on the occasion of a visit to a very smart pack in England. I had, I hope, come respectably through a minute inspection of the hounds, and, that crucial trial safely past, the Queen of Sheba tottered, spent, but thankful for preservation, into the saddle-room, a vast and impressive apartment, there to be shown, and to express fitting admiration for, the trophies of the chase that adorned it. All round the panelled walls were masks, beautifully mounted, grinning and snarling over their silver name-plates. And I, accustomed to the long-jawed wolves that we call foxes in West Carbery, said in all good faith,