ANOTHER ROW 67 



house of their friend a Mr. Harper at Greenford. We arranged 

 the sum for which we were to shoot, shot the match, and beat 

 them hollow. We nevertheless parted the best of friends, for 

 they entirely forgot, and we did not ask them, to pay their 

 stakes. 



There was a man named Baker, close under Harrow-on-the- 

 Hill, who had made himself very busy against me ; and, as money 

 was needful to him, he was one who, by notice to me, was prepared 

 to have his share. I knew his land and avoided it, but at the 

 end of a fine run the stag made an unfortunate selection, crossed 

 his fields, and, with the hounds at his haunches, entered his 

 farmyard and ran into his barn. Having avoided his fields, a 

 parallel lane led me up to the gate of his farmyard before any 

 one else, and I saw hounds and deer all rush into the barn 

 together. To save the deer I left my horse at the gate, and 

 reached the barn-door just as three labourers were about to put 

 a lock into the staple and lock up deer and hounds, who already 

 had pulled the stag down, as the deer's cries testified, and to my 

 idea were about killing him. I had but just time to thrust my 

 fingers into the staple to prevent the lock going in, and then, 

 with my back to the door, I begged the men to let me save the 

 life of the stag, and assured them if they did so I would pay all 

 damage. A brutal reply was all that this appeal elicited ; and 

 one of them, a very powerful man, seizing my arm, endeavoured 

 to force the lock through or between my fingers ; on this, as he 

 hurt me considerably, I struck him over the wrist with my fist 

 in an endeavour to knock his hold off, when he drew back and 

 hit left and right at my face. I was close to the barn-door, my 

 hand fixed in the staple, and very little room given me to give 

 way ; but, bad judges of distance as these fellows usually are, his 

 left hand never reached me, and his right only struck the peak of 

 my hunting cap, which, however, it knocked off over my face, and 

 the cap gave me a bloody nose. The other fellows also showed 

 fight, so I withdrew my hand from the staple, returned the blow 

 on the arm of the man who struck me, with the heavy iron 

 hammer of my whip, and kept them at bay. Just then the field 



