“And how many have you known him _kill_ by that same letting-alone system, Master Flash?” exclaimed old Plumtree with the usual impatience manifested by the senior when a son is so injudicious as to differ from his father. “That’s the way with you young chaps, that think you know all about it, and the whole time you haven’t even the wisdom to _know_ that you _don’t know_! Will Hawke’s hounds will stoop to a colder scent than any hounds in England, simply _because_ he lets ’em alone; and they take no more notice of a holloa than if it were a boy scaring crows. As for Tom, the first-whip, he’s a conceited, ignorant chap, to my thinking; always ‘clapping forward,’ as he calls it, and dodging about, instead of minding his business. If I had my way with Tom, I’d sew his mouth up, take his whip from him, and put him on a horse with three legs. He’d be a precious sight more useful than he is now. At any rate, he couldn’t do so much mischief. I never thought much of Tom; never liked his voice—never liked his riding—never liked his boots and breeches.” “He’s a neat fellow enough, too,” I interfered, rather inclined to take up the cudgels for my friend Tom, who had opened sundry gates for me, and shown other signs of civility on my behalf, the first day I was out. “Newmarket, sir; Newmarket!” said the old squire. “Bad school, bad scholars. You can see it in the way he sits upon his horse; though he’s got good hands, I’ll allow, and can gallop them fairly enough. The present Earl picked him out of a trainer’s stable, to ride second-horse, and he did it so _badly_, always larking over the fences in front, instead of trotting on soberly behind, that he got him out of that at any price; and, it’s my belief, only made him first-whip because he’d nowhere else to put him, and didn’t like to turn him adrift, being a sober respectable man enough. “But he’s not my idea of a whipper-in, though I may be wrong. Everything is so changed since _my_ day, and every man who wears a red coat now seems to think he knows as much as King Solomon (with a withering glance at Jem, who was buzzing the bottle of Madeira). This Tom Crow is always going on to get a view, and putting his ugly face everywhere it ought _not_ to be, under the idea that he is helping to kill the fox. That is all he has a notion of—to _kill_ the fox. Now old Hawke, though he’s as fond of blood as any huntsman alive, and far too much given to _digging_, in my opinion, is all for catching him fairly, or else not catching him at all.