CHAPTER VII
Coming Home from Hunting
Lady Chiltern was probably right when she declared that her husband
must have been made to be a Master of Hounds,--presuming it to be
granted that somebody must be Master of Hounds. Such necessity
certainly does exist in this, the present condition of England.
Hunting prevails; hunting men increase in numbers; foxes are
preserved; farmers do not rebel; owners of coverts, even when they
are not hunting men themselves, acknowledge the fact, and do not dare
to maintain their pheasants at the expense of the much better-loved
four-footed animal. Hounds are bred, and horses are trained specially
to the work. A master of fox hounds is a necessity of the period.
Allowing so much, we cannot but allow also that Lord Chiltern must
have been made to fill the situation. He understood hunting, and,
perhaps, there was nothing else requiring acute intelligence that he
did understand. And he understood hunting, not only as a huntsman
understands it,--in that branch of the science which refers simply to
the judicious pursuit of the fox, being probably inferior to his own
huntsman in that respect,--but he knew exactly what men should do,
and what they should not.
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