436 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



They were laid on, then, outside King's Gam ; then hunting 

 very slowly for a while through the wood, suddenly found them- 

 selves close upon their game — for it is too seldom the custom 

 (is it not ? I ask as one, who for many years has occasionally 

 seen the deer hunted by almost all the English staghound 

 packs, but pretend to no continued or practised experience) for 

 hunted deer to put at once as long a distance as possible 

 between themselves and their pursuers. Now hounds buckled 

 to their work, drove him through the woodland, and issued on 

 to comparatively open forest. At a great pace they ran through 

 Ocknell Inclosure ; then embarked on wild upland and heather — 

 one couple having slipped their comrades for a while, and 

 leading them far across the open and down by the water side. 

 (After the fox it should have been the duty of any who could 

 to stop that couple ; but what the etiquette may be with buck 

 I aspire not to know — and far better, I should say, on such 

 occasions is sin of omission than that of commission.) For 

 half an hour of moor and woodland it was warm and cheery 

 fun. Then we sank deeper and deeper into the great timbered 

 basin that extends from Puckpits (itself a nice little covert on 

 the map, but in wooded reality some 1,700 acres) to Lyndhurst, 

 and I don't know how far beyond. Question not my ignorance 

 as to how, or by what route or series of circles we attained 

 Lyndhurst Hill. Enough for me to say that we were all the 

 while in woodland, and most of the time galloping hard on 

 smooth grass rides, the tinkle of a hound's voice in the distance 

 our occasional guide, but more often our faith pinned blindly to 

 the movements of some such pilot as Mr. Lascelles, to whom of 

 course the mazes of the New Forest are as simple and familiar 

 as a ship's machinery to its engineer. Just when one was 

 growing dizzy and bewildered in the labyrinth, and when a 

 thought of time and train (a sportsman's most hateful bug- 

 bears) had begun to intrude, the chase all at once took an 

 unexpected and convenient turn. The deer appeared on the 

 scene (buck or doe, we must wait for the kill to tell) ; soon 

 afterwards the leading hounds also crossed the ride, with the 



