The agricultural population speak as one man upon the subject.  The old farmer will tell you with pride how his advice was sought when disease entered the kennels, and how his remedy saved the lives of valuable hounds.  The farmer’s son, a mere lad, whose head barely rises to his saddle, talks of ‘the duke’ as his hero.  This boy knows the country, and can ride straight, better than many a gentleman with groom and second horse behind.  Already, like his elders, he looks forward impatiently to the fall of the leaf.  The tenants’ wives and daughters allude with pleasure to the annual social gatherings at the mansion, and it is apparent that something like a real bond exists between landlord and tenant.  No false pride separates the one from the other—­intercourse is easy, for a man of high and ancient lineage can speak freely to the humblest labourer without endangering his precedence.  It needs none of the parvenu’s hauteur and pomp to support his dignity.  Every tenant is treated alike.

On small estates there is sometimes a complaint that the largest tenant is petted while the lesser are harshly treated.  Nothing of that is known here.  The tenants are as well content as it is possible for men to be who are passing under the universal depression. Noblesse oblige—­it would be impossible for that ancient house to stoop to meanness.  The head rides to the hunt, as his ancestors rode to battle, with a hundred horsemen behind him.  His colours are like the cockades of olden times.  Once now and then even Royalty honours the meet with its presence.  Round that ancient house the goodwill of the county gathers; and when any family event—­as a marriage—­takes place, the hearty congratulations offered come from far beyond the actual property.  His pastime is not without its use—­all are agreed that hunting really does improve the breed of horses.  Certainly it gives a life, a go, a social movement to the country which nothing else imparts.

It is a pleasant land withal—­a land of hill and vale, of wood and copse.  How well remembered are the copses on the hills, and the steeples, those time-honoured landmarks to wandering riders!  The small meadows with double mounds have held captive many a stranger.  The river that winds through them enters by-and-by a small but ancient town, with its memories of the fierce Danes, and its present talk of the hunt.  About five o’clock on winter afternoons there is a clank of spurs in the courtyard of the old inn, and the bar is crowded with men in breeches and top-boots.  As they refresh themselves there is a ceaseless hum of conversation, how so-and-so came a cropper, how another went at the brook in style, or how some poor horse got staked and was mercifully shot.  A talk, in short, like that in camp after a battle, of wounds and glory.  Most of these men are tenant farmers, and reference is sure to be made to the price of cheese, and the forthcoming local agricultural show.