6 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



bore on his position ; while Duruset expostulated with him, and 

 told him " it would be much more gentlemanlike, as well as 

 friendly, in him to reserve his untimely mirth for a less serious 

 occasion." Having split my sides, or nearly so, with laughing, 

 I came up and directed Duruset where to put his foot, and 

 with a deal of difficulty he descended in safety. 



I took Duruset out hunting once when we turned out a stag, 

 on a quiet horse, out of whose sides I told him to keep his 

 heels, and that he had better not wear spurs. However, 

 Duruset would dress the part ; and he was ready for the chase 

 in white cords, in which he told me he afterwards played 

 " young Meadows " ; and whipped and spurred he was too. 

 The hounds were laid on, but had not settled to the scent, 

 when Duruset went by me like a shot. He cast a funny look 

 at me ; it was one of triumph, as well as of an uncertainty 

 bordering on despair, as he vanished round the corner of an 

 enclosure on Harlington Common. The next thing I saw was 

 the horse without a rider; so approaching to where Duruset 

 had last been seen, I found him sitting on a hillock brushing off 

 the dirt ; when he told me it was very unkind of me to mount 

 him on the wild horse of Mazeppa, for the brute had run away 

 with him. Seeing he was all safe I rejoined the hounds. 



At a very early age my brother Moreton and myself were 

 in the habit of going out at night with the keepers, to head 

 them, if the poachers were expected in gangs; and this fact 

 reminds me of a curious circumstance, attended with some 

 degree of the supernatural, that chanced to my brother and 

 myself at the same time. When a man is alone a vision of this 

 sort may be set down to fancy ; but when two young men, in 

 no state of alarm or nervousness, see the same thing, and make 

 to each other a corresponding remark upon it, it is strange if 

 something more than mere fancy or fantasy has not invited 

 their attention. A gang of poachers was expected, and just 

 before twelve at night my brother and myself, well armed, went 

 from the passage by the servants' hall to the kitchen, intending 

 to leave the house the back way. I was leading, and had just 



