HARRIERS. 



197 



shouting, thrusting mob of gentlemen and horse dealers, 

 " legs " and horse-breakers, that whirl away after the un- 

 carted deer. Without the revival of the old Court 

 etiquette, which forbade any one to ride before royalty, 

 his Royal Highness might have been ridden down by 

 some ambitious butcher or experimental cockney horse- 

 man on a runaway. If the etiquette of the time of 

 George III. had been revived, then only Leech could 

 have done justice to the appearance of the field, follow- 

 ing impatiently at a respectful distance not the stag, 

 as they do now very often, or the hounds, as they ought 

 to do but the Prince's horse's tail. 



. Prince Albert's harriers are in the strictest sense of 

 the term a private pack, kept by his Royal Highness for 

 his own amusement, under the management of Colonel 

 Hood. The meets are not advertised. The fields con- 

 sist, in addition to the Royal and official party from the 

 Castle, of a few neighbouring gentlemen and farmers, 

 the hunting establishment of a huntsman and one whip, 

 both splendidly mounted, and a boy on foot. The cos- 

 tume of the hunt "is a very dark green cloth double- 

 breasted coat, with the Prince's gilt button, brown cords, 

 and velvet cap. 



The hounds were about fifteen couple, of medium 

 size, with considerable variety of true colours, inclining 

 to the fox-hound stamp, yet very honest hunters. In 

 each run the lead was taken by a hound of peculiar and 

 uncommon marking black and tan, but the tan so far 

 spreading that the black was reduced to merely a saddle. 



The day was rather too bright, perhaps, for the scent 

 to lie well; but there was the better opportunity for 

 seeing the hounds work, which they did most admirably, 

 without any assistance. It is one of the advantages of 

 a pack like this that no one presumes to interfere and 



