58 CHASING AND RACING 



for a convenient stable or farm building. Then he 

 calmly awaits the arrival of the pack and its attendants 

 with a comfortable conveyance to take him back to his 

 paddock, where he will have an excellent repast, and 

 sleep the sleep of the just. I remember on one occasion 

 hunting with the Queen's when a thick mist descended. 

 My faithful Ted and I got lost, but chanced across 

 some of the stragglers of the royal pack. Keeping 

 close to their sterns we were half across a twenty-acre 

 field when we came up with the main body, who had 

 their stag at bay in the open. The latter was quietly 

 browsing, what time an enthusiastic hound or two, 

 venturing too near, would be contemptuously but not 

 ungently ** hoofed '* away by the stag. We had 

 visions of a ghastly tragedy and " a poor, hunted victim 

 being torn to tatters by the ferocious pack '* ; so we 

 were prepared to do battle to avert the catastrophe, 

 but nothing happened, and presently Goodall and his 

 merry men came up and relieved us of our responsibility. 

 I never did much hunting with the D. and S. Three 

 days was enough for me, but on the last I had an 

 experience which falls to the lot of very few, yea, even 

 of those who, season after season, have devoted them- 

 selves to stumbling and plunging over the picturesque 

 banks, trees, burns, and bogs of Exmoor. I had been 

 told that the tip was to hire a local gee, used to the 

 game, and by no manner of means to bring my own 

 fox-catchers for the job, so I went to the well-known 

 job-master White, of Minehead, and told him what I 



