Whyte Melville Ballad. 



413 



earliest " Hunting Tours." On his death they were discontinued ; they were renewed as a 

 subscription pact: more than twenty years ago, and have been l^ept up ever since. 



The Surrey Hounds have a fine wild sheep-feeding country, in spite of the encroachments 

 of the villa-creating railroad stations on the Brighton line. Road-riding is not possible over 

 the barren hills and downs of Surrey, when the hounds run straight. A second stag-hound 

 pack has recently been established near Dorking. 



Ever since 1839 the Rothschild family have kept up a pack of hounds for hunting deer 

 over the Vale of Aylesbury, one of the finest countries in England ; indeed, the Vale is nearly 

 all grass, with fences, and a good deal of water to jump. There are, however, roads through 

 this rich vale ; and in his later years the late Baron Meyer, a welter weight, frequently showed 

 that, with a sharp groom in attendance^ it was possible to keep very close to hounds without 

 taking a single leap. 



Major Whyte Melville has admirably sketched the incidents of a carted-deer hunt over 

 the Vale of Aylesbury, a country second to none in the following verses. 



The last stanzas of the original have been omitted, for even Major Melville's enthusiasm 

 could make nothing of " a finish " with a tam.e deer. 



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* 



# 



# 



" Fresh from his carriaj;;, as bridegroom on marriage, 

 The Lord of the Valley leaps gallantly out. 



" Then in a second, his course having reckoned — 

 Line that all Leicestershire cannot surpass — • 

 Fleet as the swallow, when summer winds follow. 

 The Lord of the Valley skims over the grass. 



"Yonder a steed is rolled up with his master, 

 Here in a double another lies cast ; 

 Faster and faster come grief and disaster ; 

 All but the good ones are weeded at last. 



* 

 * 



# 



" Beat, but still going, a countryman sowing 

 Has sighted the Lord of the Valley ahead. 



"There in the bottom, see, sluggish and idle, 



Steals the dark stream where the willow tree grows ; 

 Harden your heart, and catch hold of the bridle, 

 Steady him ! rouse him ! and over he goes. 



"Look, in a minute a dozen are in it ; 



But forward ! hark forward ! for draggled and bloAvn, 

 A check though desiring, with courage untiring, 

 The Lord of the Valley is holding his own." 



At Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, where there is a limited but fine tract of pasture, 

 divided by ditches and quickset hedges, with open hills, a subscription pack of stag-hounds 

 was established and has been hunted ever since 1874, instead of a pack of harriers which 

 were kept by a late Earl of Brownlovv ; it has been supported, the farmers of the district 

 (and this is worth noting) objecting to hare-hunting as much more destructive to their 

 fences than a deer which goes straight away. 



In Essex, in addition to four packs of fox-hounds and several packs of harriers, a very 

 celebrated pack of stag-hounds, which were originally founded by a Lord Petre, has been kept 

 up by subscription for many years. 



The Essex country requires a fast and very clever hunter, for a mistake will not unfre- 

 quently involve not only a fall, but the need of a plough-horse and ropes to get your hunter 

 out of a deep ditch. 



This was the favourite country of the late Charles Buxton, M.P., a hereditary philan- 

 thropist, essentially a student, a serious politician of advanced views, an accomplished amateur 

 artist, in fact, the very last kind of man that philosophers of the library and the desk would 



