400 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



The horse I rode was a very fine shaped bay sixteen 

 hands high, with fair coat and in good hunting condition, 

 he looked shaky on his fore legs and wore boots, but was in 

 truth very safe and a capital hack. He had a singular tumour 

 or swelling in the inside of the near thigh, caused by being- 

 staked on Exmoor. The mare, which my wife rode, was a 

 very good stamp, brown, 15I- hands high, and very compact 

 and strongly built, a good and safe hack, very quiet and steady 

 on the road, and a good hunter, though not in condition, having 

 apparently been recently taken up ; she improved greatly as 

 did the horse during the fortnight they were in our service. I 

 liked both well enough to obtain their prices, viz., horse ^28, 

 mare £42, but their ages and other circumstances prevented 

 my being taken by either. 



Friday, September 17th. A lovely morning, though not 

 exactly adapted for hunting. The fixture was Berry Hill, only 

 two miles from Dulverton, the ride to it (and through the wood 

 while the Tuft hounds were slotting their deer in the wooded 

 valley below us) was lovely, and recalled to our recollection 

 scenes in Switzerland, as Dulverton itself struck us as some- 

 what resembling some of the Swiss villages. 



We took our station along with many veterans versed in the 

 geography of the locality, at a commanding spot overlooking 

 the further woods of Lord Carnarvon by the summer house 

 where the Tufters were drawing, and were assured that nine 

 times out of ten the stag broke in our direction and we should 

 probably have a good view. However, it was unluckily not to 

 be, and being thoroughly chilled with waiting an hour in an 

 exposed spot, it was arranged that my wife should return in 

 charge of her doughty squire, while I rode to join the hounds. 

 I had only just reached the bottom when a man rode up with 

 orders for the whip to bring on the pack, which had been shut 

 up in a farm house, a stag of the right age having- been found 

 and moved. 



On joining the field, who were decked out in pink and 

 complete hunting attire, my horse, the bay, was immediately 

 recognised by Mr. Fred Daniel as having been his property 

 only a twelvemonth ago, and it w^as satisfactory that he was a 

 good and safe hack and used to this wild country ; I also 

 recognised Edward Karslake, who greeted me cordially and 

 introduced me to several of the leading men of the hunt. The 

 pack, when laid on, rather overshot their mark and got on to the 

 track of some hind which had gone away, but were presently 

 put on the right track and immediately our eyes were gratified 



