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CHAPTER X

The Eighth Duke

HEN the Duke handed over the duties of

huntsman to Tom Clark, he did so with regret. To a man who has once hunted hounds, the sport can never be quite the same when he no longer carries the horn. The interest in the working of the pack as a whole, and in the individual hounds which compose it, is so absorbing to the huntsman, that were it not for his responsibilities to his field, there would be but little difference to him between a so-called bad day, and a good one. Indeed it may well be that a day which to many hardriding followers seems dull, is for the man who hunts hounds a period of absorbing interest and delight.

To see Chanticleer, one of this season's entry, rush to the head of the pack at a difficulty and put them all right; to see old Woldsman take the line down a road for nearly a quarter of a mile; or to watch Rarity pick up the scent alongside a hedge, and hear her shrill but true notes as she drops her stern and scuttles away, while the rest stream to

her trusted summons, these things are delights in themselves, quite keen enough to make up a day's pleasure.

The huntsman recollects too with pride, the successful cast he made when hounds were at fault, how he held them past the sheep or over a bad scenting fallow, and saw them put their noses down and drive forward directly they had passed the foiled ground.

But it must be confessed that to hunt hounds successfully, takes up a great deal of time and thought. Many other duties and other occupations were calling the Duke. There were the duties of a great landlord, and the tradition of the Somersets was to manage their estates liberally. They had, moreover, that genuine interest in, and liking for the details of farming, which only could give them the real influence they undoubtedly wielded in their own county. So the Duke was a farmer on a large scale. A A great landlord can afford to try improvements and show farmers what they should aim at. The English farmer is conservative and slow to change. This is not because he is wanting in intelligence, but because for him farming is his livelihood and he cannot afford to spend capital on doubtful experiments. This the Duke understood, and he entered the lists as a grower and exhibitor of choice stock. He frequently exhibited successfully, and his flock of Southdown sheep was well known throughout Wilts and Gloucester. The good blood