164 Cranlorne Chase. 



where they had been much exposed to the sun and annoyed by flies, 

 and enter a small detached cover, for shade. After a very short con- 

 versation, therefore, with the host, who had not seen the deer, but 

 perhaps was gazing at the rocks of the Isle of Wight, he wished 

 him good morning, and made a circuit to the place where the deer 

 entered and near which he judged that they were then lodged. 

 With great caution and profound silence he drew out his nooses 

 from his musical papers, and set them with great dexterity at every 

 pathway within the border of the wood. He then filled his pockets 

 with pebbles, and went quietly round to the opposite side, when he 

 began the operation of throwing the pebbles, jerking one at a time 

 into the wood at a short distance, just to stir the deer without much 

 alarming them : and, by making approaches to them in this manner, 

 to keep them in motion, that, whilst they were attending to the 

 falling of the pebbles, they might heedlessly run their heads into 

 the nooses, in which, when he came to examine, he found that he 

 had been successful, and had got three of the finest deer suspended 

 by their necks : whose throats he immediately cut. Knowing that 

 there was an old saw-pit in the wood, full of leaves, he dragged 

 them thither : and having paunched them, concealed the bodies in 

 the pit, and covered them with leaves. He then mounted an oak 

 tree which commanded a view of the whole Walk, took his Hudibras 

 out of his pocket and amused himself by reading it, until nights 

 fall : when perceiving the coast clear, he betook himself in a by-way 

 to his own habitation : and having made his success known to his 

 confederates, a small party of them went with a cart and brought 

 home their booty without interruption, or even suspicion. The two 

 bands, the hunters and the musicians, had fine feasting : for it was 

 a leading and strict rule that no plunder of this kind was ever sold ; 

 unless to pay the penalty if they were detected.^' 



Such having been the example set by the so-called '^ gentlemen 

 hunters,''^ and such their way of spending Sunday in Cranborne 

 Chase, we are not much surprized to hear of coarser and more violent 

 proceedings, as soon as the business passed into the hands of a lower 

 class of men. The annals of the Chase, from the early part of the 

 last century, when our information begins, are accordingly disgraced 



