About the races themselves there was something fascinatingly nonprofessional.  They bore the same relation to great races on great tracks that a very fine performance of a play by amateurs might bear to a professional performance.

First came a two-mile steeplechase, with brush hurdles.  Then, after a couple of minor events, a four-mile point-to-point race for hunters ridden by gentlemen in hunt uniform.  This was as stiff a race for both horses and riders as I have ever seen, and it was very picturesque to watch the pink coats careering up hill and down dale, now over a tall stone wall, now over a brook or a snake fence; and when a rider went head over heels, and lay still upon the ground where he fell, while his horse cantered along after the field, in that aimless and pathetic way that riderless horses have, one had a real sensation—­which was the pleasanter for knowing, a few minutes later, that the horseman had only broken an arm.

Next was run a rollicking race for horses owned by farmers, and others, whose land is hunted over by the Piedmont and Middleburg foxhounds; and last occurred a great comedy event—­a mule race, free for all, in which one of the hunting men, in uniform, made such a handsome showing against a rabble of white and colored boys, all of them yelling, all of them beating their long-eared animals with sticks, that he would have won, had he not deliberately pulled his mount and “thrown” the race.

The last event was not yet finished when my companion, who had become nervous about his interurban trolley, got into a machine to drive to Bluemont.

“Of course,” he said as we parted, “we’ll miss you to-night.”

“Oh,” I said, “I hope not.  I expect to get there.”

“I don’t see how you can make it,” said he.  “You have a lot of material to gather.”

“I shall work fast.”

“Well,” said he, trying to speak like the voice of Conscience, “I hope you won’t forget your duty—­that’s all.”

“I proposed this party to-night.  It is my duty to be there.”

“You didn’t make any definite engagement,” said he, “and, besides, your first duty is to your editors and your readers.”

Having tossed me this disgusting thought, he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving me sad and alone, but not yet altogether in despair.

The last race over, I hastened to Mr. Thomas’s house, which, by this time, looked like an old English hunting print come to life, for it was now crowded with pink coats.  For most of the technical information contained in this chapter I am indebted to various gentlemen whom I encountered there.

In Virginia—­which is the oldest fox-hunting State in the Union, the sport having been practised there for nearly two centuries—­the words “hunt” or “hunting” never by any chance apply to shooting, but always refer to hunting the fox with horse and hounds.  A “hunter” is not a man but a horse; a huntsman is not a member of the hunt but a hunt-servant; the “field” may be the terrain ridden over by the hunt, or it may be the group of riders following the hounds—­“hunt followers,” “hunting men,” and “hunting women.”