Stay at home and look after your hounds. Remember Garge Riddel:

So stay at home and look after your dogs summer and winter, and do not go gadding about all the puppy shows in the kingdom. At your own puppy show, if your master is foolish enough to allow your health to be drunk, simply acknowledge the compliment, and do not follow the present practice of huntsmen in making what you doubtless think is a clever and facetious speech.

When the hunting season is over, and your young hounds will go pretty quietly without couples, get on the hacks and have the old hounds also out. I do not mean to fast exercise, but long walking exercise, keeping under the trees and in the shade as much as possible. Anything is better for hounds than lying all day on the hot flags. Give some boiled vegetables in the old hounds’ food this time of year. Young nettles gathered before they get tough and stingy are as good as anything. The young hounds will do very well on navy ship biscuits soaked and mixed with some good broth.

Towards the latter part of July, say about the time of the Peterborough Shows, you will begin to trot the old and young hounds along, and will find as many hares, deer, etc., as you can. Keep your hounds moving right up to cub-hunting, and have them on the light side to begin with, or if the weather is hot they will tire before the foxes, get disgusted, do themselves no end of harm, and will very likely leave the foxes instead of breaking them up properly. It is a grand thing for hounds if you can show them some riot just before throwing them into a covert where you are sure to find a litter of cubs. Allow plenty of time to get to the meet; five to six miles an hour is quite fast enough, but when cub-hunting you can travel a bit faster than in regular hunting. In cub-hunting always let the hounds find their own fox, and do not have him holloaed over a ride at first. Do not have him headed back, or held up till he is beat, and then do so for fear of changing. The more foxes you kill cub-hunting after good work for hounds, the steadier and keener your pack will be, but do not go and surround small places and pick up two or three foxes at once. This does not benefit the hounds more than killing one, and in a good country is wanton waste. Always dig your fox cub-hunting if he goes to ground in a practicable place. In regular hunting it is better to go and find another than to keep the field starving in the cold; but always remember that you cannot have steady hounds without plenty of blood, and that in a country where foxes are numerous, if the pack are riotous it is always the fault of the huntsman. So begin November with your hounds “blooded up to the eyes,” as Lord Henry Bentinck wrote. Never mind what people say about letting foxes have a chance and letting them go. In a small covert let the best foxes who break covert first go, and stay and kill the worst one, but never be tempted by what anybody says to try and have a run in the open.

It is all very well for those who come out. Their horses are fresh, as they have been standing about, while you and your whippers-in have been working yours hard. They can jump or not as they like, and if they lose the hounds they can go back to breakfast, while you and the whippers-in must stick to the hounds at all costs. Besides, the young hounds do not understand it at first, and simply follow the old ones, and do themselves no end of harm by getting lost, stopping in ponds, etc.

Always remember you are the servant of your master, not of the field, and his orders should always be not to get away in the open in the cub-hunting season.

In regular hunting the whole system is reversed. Then you try and get away with the first fox that leaves, presumably the best one. If you cannot get all the hounds, and at all events enough to go on with, because the pack are running another, do not stand blowing, still less move a field or two away and blow, but gallop back as quickly as possible, get up wind of your hounds, and blow them away. If by good luck they happen to throw up for a moment, out they will come to your horn, and you can lay both ends on the line together. Unless the fox goes straight away up wind, it is almost always better to blow your hounds out at a place where the fox has not gone, and lay them on all together. Always have one way of blowing when the fox is away—one that neither the field nor the hounds can mistake—and unless the latter are running very hard, you will see how they will come tumbling out to it. All hounds hate struggling in thick covert, and are more or less anxious to get away. But never be tempted to use this note for any other purpose. If you do, its charm is gone. You cannot, to quote Lord Henry Bentinck again, lie to your hounds with impunity. Indeed, in hunting a fox in the open you should hardly use your horn at all. I am no advocate for much horn; as Mr Vyner says, in season it is like a word: “How good it is”; but when it is blown I like it to give forth no uncertain sound, that everyone may know what is meant by it, hounds and all. If you are always blowing your horn, whether you want hounds or not, you might as well be playing the concertina for all they will care for it.

When you come to the first check it is almost a certainty that the fox has turned right or left. Of course, if a good one, he may turn again and make his original point, so do not sit still. Try and keep the field off the hounds, and encourage them to try, up wind at first if possible: the fox has most likely turned down wind, but the hounds will almost swing their own cast unaided up wind; and if the fox has turned in this direction and they hit him off, he is yours; nothing but an open drain can save him. Meanwhile, cast your eye well forward and down wind, and see if you can see the fox or anything suggestive, such as a man running, sheep running, or having run together, to show where he is gone. When the pack have finished their cast, then, and not till then, go to them: do not stand and blow; whisper a word of encouragement in their ears, and cast them, on the best scenting ground you can see, in a body in front of you. You will be able to keep the field off their backs much better in this way than if you started off jumping with the pack at your horse’s tail and all the hard-riding fools of the field mixed up with them. If the assisted up-wind cast and the down-wind cast both end in silence, it looks bad; but always remember that if your down-wind cast is a wide one the fox may have gone to ground short of it, or you may have cast over his line owing to a bit of bad scenting. All you can do then is to use your discretion. I remember a season or two ago, after having come a considerable way, the hounds threw up among a perfect sea of greasy wheat-fields, in which there seemed to be positively no scent at all. The orthodox casts having produced no result, I noticed there was one grass field about a mile and a half ahead—an oasis in the desert. I thought: “Well, the fox is lost anyhow, but if by good luck he has crossed that field, the hounds will show a line.” I cantered on, and they did show a line, with the result that we were able to keep on after the fox and eventually kill him in a neighbouring country.

When you come to a covert let your hounds hunt the line through it. I do not like the plan of having them whipped off the line and casting beyond it. Never take the hounds off their noses if you can help it. Similarly, when your fox is beat, and you see him before hounds, hold your tongue, and by no means take them off their noses unless you are perfectly certain you can give them a view. If the fox pops through a hedge and they do not see him, you will have lost a lot of time, as the hounds will not hunt for a few minutes, but will stand staring about, expecting to see the fox. The only time it is allowable to lift them after a beaten fox is when they are running for a head of open earth or a covert full of fresh foxes. But never, under any circumstances, go and ride the fox, leaving your hounds. I have seen many huntsmen do this, but I never yet saw one catch a fox by himself, though I have seen some very nearly do it.

Your fox is dead and the day over. Travel home quietly, and do not have the hounds hurried. Stop somewhere if the day has been very hard, and give your horses some chilled water or gruel if you can get it; but do not stop long, and never go inside a house, no matter whose it is. When you get home feed your hounds yourself, with judgment. The man who hunts the hounds should always feed them; not because feeding them makes them any fonder of you, but because the huntsman knows, or ought to know, how much each hound requires. Never let them eat to repletion; if you do, what is the result? In every pack there are some slow, shy feeders: while these are playing with their food the greedy ones are fairly gorging themselves. The next day’s hunting will find the light feeders some two or three fields ahead of the gorgers, to the detriment of the looks and sport of the pack. Years ago hounds were always washed after hunting. I do not think this a good plan—they will soon clean themselves in the straw; but if it is pouring with rain when you return to kennel, so that whatever you do you can make the hounds no wetter, I can see no harm in throwing some nice warm broth over them, and it certainly makes them look well the next day. Always have two lodging-rooms for your hunting pack: put them in one directly after feeding, and shift them into another for the rest of the night in about an hour and a half’s time. This will prevent a lot of kennel lameness, which is really rheumatism.

In breeding I see no reason why pregnant bitches should not run with the pack if you are at all short: of course, they must be stopped in good time. They should then be turned out of the kennel and given their liberty all day. I know this causes some complaint if the kennels are near a village, as these old ladies are sad thieves; but having kennels near a village is such a manifest advantage to the latter that complaint really ought not to be made. Five puppies are quite enough for any mother to bring up. After the middle of May four is plenty. Do all you can to induce farmers and others to walk puppies; without good walks every pack must deteriorate. Show an interest in your puppies by looking them up at summer exercise. When they come in from quarters, and distemper and yellows break out, you will have your hands full, and must not mind having to get up in the night and attend to the sick ones. There are all sorts of recipes, homoeopathic as well as allopathic, but the best medicines are warmth, care, and attention. It is not sufficient to drop the food down before the puppy; you must stay and see that he eats it. Yellows is a much more dangerous disease than distemper, and coming with it, as it often does, is almost always fatal. Calomel in some form or other seems to be the only remedy, and that a very uncertain one. Never let the old and young hounds lodge or feed together till cub-hunting. If rabies breaks out, it almost always comes from some hound having been bitten at quarters. If you have once had rabies in your kennel you will never forget it.

Ride your horses fairly, and do not try and gain the praise of ignorant onlookers by jumping unnecessary fences; and do not be always quarrelling with your horse and jagging at his mouth—the best riders are those who are on good terms with their horses. Do not grumble; do not quarrel with the stud groom. Remember you are one of the luckiest men in the world, paid for doing what is or what ought to be your greatest pleasure. Do not be down-hearted if you get into a run of bad luck and are tempted to think you will never catch a fox again, and when you hear things said which would try the patience of Job. Luck will change, and you will begin to think you can never lose a fox again. Talk to your hounds and make much of them; never speak angrily or uncivilly to them. Whatever you do, always try and get them to think they are doing it all themselves. If you have to stop them at dark, or off a vixen, try and do it when they come to a check; but if you are obliged to stop them roughly, get off your horse and make friends with them again. Show them they have done no wrong by persevering on. Always ask to have the mute hounds, skirters, and noisy ones drafted at once. They are faults that always get worse, and as Jorrocks says, a skirting hound, like a skirting rider, is sure to have a lot of followers. I do not call a hound a skirter that cuts corners going to the cry. This is what every good hound ought to do.

Be kind to your whippers-in; do not try and slip them. When you turn back drawing a covert always let them know by a good loud “Yooi over, try back!” They will work all the better for you if you help them in their little ways. When you have made up your mind to go to a holloa, take your hounds off their noses and travel along. Do not, if you can help it, let them hunt again till you have found out from the man who holloaed exactly which way the fox really went. He very likely turned him, and the hounds may take it heel way: it is poor consolation to be told by a grinning rustic, after the hounds have settled with a good cry, “They be a running back scent.” It is easier to strike the line heel way than people think. Casting you may get on the heel line of another fox which has left the covert since you did. I have often been laughed at for doing it and told to trust my hounds; but even if they are running hard, and I come across a man who has seen the fox, I do not think a few seconds are thrown away in finding out which way the fox’s head was. As my father used to say, take every advantage you can of your fox. He will take every one he possibly can of you.

Look out along a road. It is a curious thing, but hounds hardly ever turn out of one exactly where the fox has gone. They either go too far or more commonly not far enough. If you can manage to get half the pack in the road and the other half in two lots on each of it, you are in a capital position; and when those in the road throw up you can press on without fear of overrunning the scent. Do not hurry the hounds in a road, and beware how you encourage one that is always making a hit under these circumstances. If you make too much of him you will turn him into a rogue. Always acknowledge to your master when you have lost the fox, and do not go dragging on, and slip the hounds into a covert and count the fresh fox you find as the one you have been hunting. Your master may wish the covert drawn in a different way. Be cheery in drawing woods; make plenty of noise, so that the hounds may know where you are. If they are very fond of you, they will be listening about for you if you go on the silent system. Hounds that habitually hang back in covert should be drafted, but after you have drawn one blank you will only make these offenders worse by standing and blowing. Move on, and they will catch you up. Once more, but it cannot be too often repeated, never interfere with your hounds at checks till they have made their own casts first. To quote Lord Henry Bentinck once more, hounds that are repeatedly messed about and cast will in a short time become demoralised so that they will do nothing to help themselves.