viii PREFACE. 



— teste^ " The Diary of Master William Silence " — 

 learned his woodcraft ; and he was schooled to think 

 over and reflect on the incidents of each day's sport 

 and the line of each run by a wise father— then 

 Curate of Chipping Campden — who always made 

 him on his return give an account of the day's doings 

 and of the hound work. 



Bradfield and Cambridge followed, not without 

 distinction ; then he read for the Bar ; but politics, 

 and sport when within his reach, had greater 

 attractions for him. As a boy of sixteen he was 

 helping the Conservative candidate at Bristol, and 

 on three or four occasions he acted as Election 

 Agent in constituencies when there was a hard 

 fight, his keenness and energy and skill contributing 

 not a little to the successful result in each case, and 

 winning for him nomination to the Political Com- 

 mittee of the Constitutional Club. 



His first visit to the Exmoor country was nearly 

 thirty years ago when he went to Porlock in charge 

 of a pupil with whom he hunted strenuously on foot. 

 A little later he became correspondent of the 

 Field, a post he held for over twenty years, writing 

 with no little literary skill, and giving accounts 

 of the day's doings which were remarkable for 

 their insight and accuracy and for their appreciation 

 of the circumstances which had helped toward good 

 sport on one day and made failure all but inevitable 

 on another. 



Almost the only break in his career as 



