Huntsmen

Across the downs of Surrey two terrified foxes streaked. Behind one of them the blue-blooded pack of the aristocratic Surrey Union Hunt bayed in melodious chorus. The other fox was chased by what appeared to be a purely self-appointed troop of yelping mongrels.

Suddenly the two foxes began to interweave their trails. The mongrel and aristocratic canine pursuers became hopelessly entangled and started fighting among themselves. Scandalized, the Surrey Union Huntsmen rode up and tried to disperse the mongrel pack by a drastic and ungentle plying of whips Their morning had gone simply blotto.* Their tempers were up, and mongrel hides offered a safe issuance for spleen. It did not occur to them that the whelps might belong to anybody.

A few moments later the aristocratic huntsmen were surrounded by a troop of raggety men who vowed that they were huntsmen top. Two of their number sported their masters' cast off hunting costumes. One of them rode an old broken down mare. All of them had flagrantly violated the first canon of fox-hunting good form by equipping themselves with rifles! To a true British aristocrat any other method of killing a fox than allowing the dogs to tear all of it but the "brush" to tatters smacks of sacrilege. One of the ladies of the Union Hunt Club loudly declared that whoever the pedestrian fox hunters were they should be shot with their own rifles. Up to her stepped one Bert Batchelor, doughty wheelwright: "Those poor dogs are ours. . . . We are the Holmwood Hunt. Saving your displeasure, the Surrey Union Hunt has ridden out so seldom of late that the foxes are getting thicker and stealing our poultry and stock. We have a license to kill vermin, and we thought we might as well have a bit of sport while we were about it. . . . So far we've shot eleven foxes. . . ." British correspondents had not the heart to continue the story of aristocratic discomfiture beyond that point. Their despatches chronicled one final infamy: The Holmwood Huntsmen are wont to refresh themselves with "beer, coarse bread and strong cheese."