Gentlemen think it right to affect a contempt for stag-hunting, and many a battle have I had with Cousin John when he has provoked me by "pooh-poohing" that exhilarating amusement. I generally get the best of the argument. I put a few pertinent questions to him which he cannot answer satisfactorily. I ask him, "What is your principal object in going out hunting? Is it to learn the habits of the wild animal, or to watch the instinct of the hound that pursues him? Do you enjoy seeing a fox _walked_ to death, as you call it, on a cold scenting day--or do you care for the finest hunting run that ever was seen in a woodland country? Have I not heard you say a hundred times, when questioned as to your morning sport, 'Oh, wretched! hounds never went any pace!--couldn't shake off the crowd--yes, we killed our fox; but the whole thing was dead slow?' or else exclaim, with a face of delight, 'The fastest thing I have seen for years! Eighteen minutes _up wind_, extra pace! not a soul but myself in the same field with them when they threw their heads up. Fox was _back_, of course, and we never recovered him, but it was by far the best gallop of the season?' It is evident to me that what you _like_ is riding a good hunter fast over a stiff country--going a turn better than your neighbours, and giving your own skill that credit which is due to the superiority of your horse. You only consider the hounds as a fleeting object at which to ride; the fox as a necessary evil, without which all this 'rasping' and 'bruising' and 'cutting down,' as you call it in your ridiculous jargon, cannot be attained. Why, then, do you waste so much energy, and money, and civility, and 'soft-sawder,' to preserve the vulpine race? Why don't you all hunt with stag-hounds, or, better still, devote yourselves to a drag, when you may gallop and jump and bustle about, and upset your horses, and break your own necks to your heart's content?" To all of which John answers, as men invariably do when they are worsted, that "women can't enter into these things, and I am talking great nonsense about what I don't understand." However, let him despise "the calf," as he termed it, as much as he liked, I was not going to be stewed up in London, with the wind at south-west, the thermometer 45 deg., and the mud over one's ankles, whilst Brilliant and White Stockings were eating their heads off in the stable, so I took advantage of John's good nature to exact a promise that he would take me down and show me her Majesty's stag-hounds in the field; and on the express stipulation that Mrs. Lumley should join our party, and that we should confine ourselves religiously to the lanes, I was promised the enjoyment of a day's hunting. John did everything I asked him now; he was even kinder than he used to be; but it was a different sort of kindness, and it cut me to the heart.