WITH THE KILLING KILDAEES 97 



from my diaries, but I think that the second winter 

 of the War was not a brilliant one for sportsmen in 

 Kildare. As far as my memory serves me the best 

 days of the season were Thursdays, as usual; and 

 perhaps the best things a couple of gallops on that 

 day of the week westwards from Bull Hill, a covert 

 I do not seem to have heard of a decade previously. 

 I must honestly own, however, that I played no 

 prominent part in the chase, but like Pomponius 

 Ego in Handley Cross, " I complacently resigned my 

 place of leader of the first rank, and contented 

 myself with trotting quietly on, and observing the 

 performance of the others." 



The fact is that Kildare is a country in which, 

 as I have said before, it is no use a man's hunting 

 unless he is going to jump ; and I may add, it is no 

 use his trying to cut out the work unless he has 

 horses that are used to the country. Nor is it a 

 country that a man who has given up hunting for 

 big-game shooting for eight years should recommence 

 the former in. The fences look rotten and the 

 ditches deep. They both are, as a rule. However, 

 I enjoyed my season vastly, even if I did not compete 

 for the place of honour. 



One sad memory I have of that winter. It is that 

 of returning from hunting to the Curragh to see the 

 flag flying half-mast high for the greatest sovereign 

 England has ever seen. 



a 



