A Day With Lord Rothschild's Staghoiinds 187 



more go the way 'e's looking than 'e can look the way 'e's 

 going. 'E oughter wear blinkers." 



"Bill, you are wrong again. Hit's my opinion as 'tis only 

 an oat as is pricking 'im. 'E'll straighten out when it gets 

 past the tickling spot." 



Here we are at the meet, a typical English cross roads 

 where there is a big sign on a very small inn under a thick 

 straw roof. It stood facing the village green and was called 

 "The Golden Fleece." A private house on the other side of 

 the green does duty as a store, post and telegraph office. A few 

 other thatched cottages, covered with English ivy, squatted 

 low on the ground, behind neatly trimmed hedge enclosures, 

 their front yard filled with ornamental shrubs, flowers and 

 roses. In the centre of the green is the public duck pond, the 

 green itself being a pasture of the fowls, a playground for the 

 neighbouring children, a whittling place for the village talent 

 and a lounging place for any one so disposed. 



Just back of all tliis, but hidden by a high hedge, shrubs 

 and tree border, is the Rectory, Avliich is better seen from a 

 little way down the road where the snug httle Rectory Lodge 

 makes a break in the hedge. There you may look down the 

 beautiful circling drive and across a meadow to the Rectory 

 itself which, although more than half hidden by vines and 

 shrubbery, looks ideal. On the o])posite side of the road, back 

 from the liighway in a meadow of great spreading oaks, stands 

 the "Hall," the home of the village Scpiire. a man who. if his 

 temperament suits and it usually does in England, lives the 

 ideal life, — a few hunters to ride, a few horses to drive, a game 

 preserve on his own land, a shooting box in Scotland and a 

 yacht on the Solent. He owns a thousand broad acres where 

 he and his tenants breed pure bred stock wliich ynn honours 

 at the fair in competition with her INIajesty the Queen, and 

 his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. 



The squire is an old man now, judging by his white hair 



