utterly wasted ? How often have frost and snow, drought and rain,
wind and sunshine, impeded his plans ? for to a hunting man
frost, snow, drought, rain, wind and sunshine, will all come
amiss. Then, when the one run of the season comes, he is not
there! He has been idle and has taken a liberty with the day; or
he has followed other gods and gone with strange hounds. With
sore ears and bitter heart he hears the exaggerated boastings of
his comrades, and almost swears that he will have no more of it.
At the end of the season he tells himself that the season's
amusement has cost him five hundred pounds; that he has had one
good day, three days that were not bad, and that all the rest
have been vanity and vexation of spirit. After all, it may be a
question whether the man who hunts and doesn't like it does not
have the best of it.

When we consider what is endured by the hunting man the wonder is
that any man should like it. In the old days of Squire Western,
and in the old days too since the time of Squire Western, the
old days of thirty years since, the hunting man had his hunting
near to him. He was a country gentleman who considered himself to
be energetic if he went out twice a week, and in doing this he
rarely left his house earlier for that purpose than he would
leave it for others. At certain periods of the year he
if ho went out twice a he rarely left his house than he would
leave it periods of the year he would, perhaps, be out before
dawn; but then the general habits of his life conduced to early
rising; and his distances were short. If he kept a couple of
horses for the purpose he was well mounted, and these horses were
available for other uses. He rode out and home, jogging slowly
along the roads, and was a martyr to no ambition. All that has