THE SPREADING TOWN 57 



me, I went in, ushered by a butler, and peeped at by many 

 maids ; and, on asking where the stag was, the butler replied 

 that he had been in all the lower offices, and when he last saw 

 him he was going up the drawing-room stairs. On asking for 

 the master and mistress, the man replied, " his master had gone 

 up after the stag, and that his mistress was but poorly.*" The 

 butler introduced me to the drawing-room, but neither master 

 nor stag were in it, when at that moment a door at the other 

 end opened, and the owner of the house came in, under visible 

 though suppressed excitement. I began all sorts of apologies, 

 as usual, and for a moment the gentleman was civil enough ; but 

 on my asking where the stag was, all restraint gave way, and in 

 a fury he replied, " Your stag, sir, not content with walking 

 through every office, has been here, sir, here in my drawing- 

 room, sir, whence he proceeded upstairs to the nursery, and 



damn me, sir, he's now in Mrs. 's boudoir." All I could 



say was, that I was very sorry ; and I asked him what I was to 

 do. He left me in the drawing-room for a few minutes, and 

 then called me to follow him, and the stag was in a passage 

 at the top of a backstair. The deer got down again into the 

 offices, where he was safely secured. 



Several gallant friends of mine got into occasional rows; 

 and in one instance, where blows passed between one of them 

 and a person who used to hunt with my hounds, and who, it 

 was said, kept "a hell " in "Seven Dials," and who was 

 deficient in teeth, I remember Sir George WombwelFs saying, 

 " My good fellow, you should not have touched that man ; 

 why he had but one tooth, and looked as if he thirsted for 

 blood.'"' Still, in the midst of it all, for twelve years our sport 

 continued, and a vast deal of fun we had. Enclosure after 

 enclosure went on, heath and common vanished, villas sprung 

 up where gravel-pits, fish, and snipes used to be, and, instead of 

 the decrease of man, and the place becoming so that, " on the 

 hospitable hearth, the hare should leave her young," things 

 were reversed : roses grew where the bulrush and reed had 

 flourished, and babies' cries were heard on sites that in my 



