70 THE DIARY OF A HUNTSMAN 



have one hundredweight of hay per week for eight 

 months, two hundred horses would consume three 

 hundred and ninety tons of hay, etc. 



It is indeed wonderful the effect of proper 

 civility ; but probably a greater proof cannot be 

 given than this account of the following circum- 

 stance — a fact which actually took place in a 

 country hunted by the writer. It happened, a 

 year or two before he hunted the country, that a 

 notorious character, celebrated by having ridden 

 down the Devil's Dyke at Brighton, when riding 

 across a field of wheat in a deep country, was 

 accosted by the owner of the land in very rough 

 terms. Owing to this gentleman's wearing a cap, 

 he was mistaken for one of the whippers-in, and 

 thus addressed : " You are a pretty sort of fellow 

 to ride across a man's wheat in this shameful way ; 

 when the hounds be running 'tis bad enough, but 

 to do it now is too bad ; and when all the gentle- 

 men be in the road, and you servants to behave 

 in this way, I'll soon make you be out on't " ; 

 and actually struck the noble captain with a 

 hedge-stake. On which he, without loss of time, 

 made such use of his double thong, that the farmer 

 ran away, the captain riding after him till he 

 came to the gateway, under which there was a 

 large drain, and into the drain the farmer got ; 

 on which the captain jumped off, hallooed, 



