THE CHASE OE A HIND. 119 



easy to lose hounds, as it is next to impossible to 

 see or hear anything, and many horses are very bad 

 to send along in the teeth of a storm. In staghunt- 

 ing there is always company, and there is, generally 

 some enterprising person who sees where hounds 

 turn, to the benefit of those behind him ; but in the 

 winter it is very different, one may often find oneself 

 alone, or almost alone, with two or three couple of 

 hounds racing hard and almost inaudible at a little 

 distance. To live with hounds under these circum- 

 stances is a far harder test of a rider's hunting 

 capacity, apart from mere riding, than anything he 

 is likely to meet with when following the stag. 



Were it not for the strong tendency most hinds 

 have to come back to the place from whence they 

 started, the riders present at the death of a hind 

 would frequently be many less than they are at 

 present. When hounds have met at Cloutsham it is 

 the safest plan, if one is not actually with hounds, 

 to trot quietly back to Horner about two o'clock and 

 wait. The chances are very strong that one or more 

 hinds, more or less dead beat, and eventually the 

 hounds will come down the water. The same 

 plan may be equally efficacious at Haddon or 

 Hawkridge. 



The Boxing-day meet at Cloutsham, in 1898, fairly 

 illustrated some of the difficulties commonly met 

 with in bad weather. As we rode over the wild 

 brown summit of Dunkery we realised the full truth 

 of the prophecies we had heard en route, that 



