In about four days after my arrival, when I was already infinitely
disgusted with the little Pot-house in which I was forced to stay,
and had made up my mind that the people in county Mayo were a
churlish set, I sent my horse on to a meet of the fox-hounds, and
followed after myself on an open car.
No one but an erratic fox-hunter such as I am,--a fox-hunter, I mean,
whose lot it has been to wander about from one pack of hounds to
another,--can understand the melancholy feeling which a man has when
he first intrudes himself, unknown by any one, among an entirely new
set of sportsmen. When a stranger falls thus as it were out of the
moon into a hunt, it is impossible that men should not stare at him
and ask who he is. And it is so disagreeable to be stared at, and to
have such questions asked! This feeling does not come upon a man in
Leicestershire or Gloucestershire where the numbers are large, and a
stranger or two will always be overlooked, but in small hunting
fields it is so painful that a man has to pluck up much courage
before he encounters it.
We met on the morning in question at Bingham's Grove. There were not
above twelve or fifteen men out, all of whom, or nearly all were
cousins to each other.
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