A Day With Lord Rothschild's Staghounds 189 



receive Pharaoli's chariot, and likewise closes upon it when it 

 enters the crowded green. 



Lord Rothschild, wlio, with his brother, headed the proces- 

 sion, was followed by the riders and the crated stag. We all 

 moved on to witness the "enlargement," as the liberation of the 

 stag is called. This took place a mile or more from the meet. 

 The hounds, however, remained at the Village to allow twenty 

 minutes or half an hour "law" to the stag before they were put 

 upon his trail. 



Finally, after entering a most beautiful field with great 

 rolling meadows, a wide expanse of the richest and most beauti- 

 ful agricultural district came into view. The crated stag was 

 halted near the gate in the field. The door was thrown open and 

 out stepped his highness. Then as the crowd of spectators gave 

 a cheer, he crouched for a mighty spring that sent him liigh in 

 the air. Thus, in a succession of bounds, he circled the field, 

 returning to within a hundred feet or so of the van. He then 

 jumped the hedge, almost in the presence of the crowd, whose 

 renewed cheering sent him across the field to the right, giving 

 us all a splendid chance to view him as he raced away over the 

 crest of a distant hill to disappear in a clump of timber. 



After allowing twenty minutes "law," as above recorded 

 the huntsman and whippers-in came smartly on with the pack. 

 The moment the hounds began to feel the line away went their 

 tongues in one grand chorus and the chase began. 



It was a glorious sight, hounds, horses, men. One and all 

 race away down the vale, across the great fields, up the slope, 

 over ditches, hedges and timber into the wood, where the stag 

 was seen to disappear. That first twenty minutes, what a 

 thrilling ride! It was such a twenty minutes as comes only 

 now and then to those who frequent hunting fields. Those 

 beautiful fields, that wonderful turf and the hedges, how they 

 flew past and under us, they seemed to be coming at us like 

 driftwood racing down a mighty stream. 



