III
MEASURED by the human standard, the life of a fox-hound is a short one. It is not a butterfly existence; it cannot be summed up as short and sweet, or as a short and a merry one, for war, hunting, and love, as the proverb says, have a thousand troubles for their pleasure. The problem whether life is worth living is not one that either fox-hunter or fox-hound are likely to strain their intellects in solving. To many persons who follow hounds, as well as to the many who do not, a fox-hound is little more than a spotted dog. Little do these realise how every hound has its own distinct individuality, and how much careful attention, education, and training each of them has received before it was incorporated with the pack; and that the fox-hound—a wonder of beauty and endurance, with the qualities of nose, pace, and tongue exquisitely developed—has been produced by the labour and skill of Masters of Hounds and huntsmen through more than two centuries. Who can measure the work, the thought, and the anxiety, that have given us the modern fox-hound? How often we remark, “They’re a good pack of hounds,” but how seldom do we think of the pains that have been taken to make them a good pack! The selection of brood bitches, the choosing of sires, the rearing of puppies, the finding of walks, the losses by distemper; the accidents, the drafting, the entering; the exercising and disciplining of young hounds; the conditioning of working hounds, their maintenance in health, their feeding and kennelling,—these give but an outline of the subjects that demand the skilled attention of an M.F.H. and his servants. It is man that has made the fox-hound not less than the race-horse. Nature’s laws are hard to learn, and slow in their operation, but by lives passed in their study, and by experience and practice, the fox-hound has been evolved, and the kennels of England can boast of many hundred couples of hounds, each one of which approaches Whyte-Melville’s description of Bachelor—
On the straightest of legs and the roundest of feet,
With ribs like a frigate his timbers to meet,
With a fashion and fling and a form so complete,
That to see him dance over the flags is a treat.
But fashion and form without nose are in vain,
And in March or mid-winter, storm, sunshine or rain,