PRIVATE COURSING 



wealth of spruce and Scotch fir in the plantations, and 

 by the fact that hollies everywhere abounded. 



We used to pull up about half way, at the house 

 of a friendly farmer, to give the team meal and water, 

 and then came ten miles of difficulties. There was a 

 choice of three or four lanes, all equally bad, and we 

 never discovered which was the best road to take. 

 Short cuts we tried, too, and once we were landed in 

 a farmyard, with no egress except by the road we had 

 come, whilst on a second occasion we drove into 

 boggy ground, and lost something like half an hour 

 before we could resume the journey. 



We were on high land again for the last few miles 

 in a wild country, where the shrill note of the 

 curlew was constantly heard, where the black-game 

 clubbed on the walls at daybreak, and, caring nothing 

 for a carriage in the lane, let us get well within shot 

 as we passed. At length the scene of operations 

 was reached. ' High Law ' Farm I may call it here, 

 and High Law Farm consisted of some thirteen large 

 rough grass enclosures, which averaged over ninety 

 acres apiece, the farm being something like i,ioo acres 

 in extent. As well as I recollect there was not a single 

 tree on the whole estate, nor was rhere any covert 

 except isolated pieces of gorse or heather and the 

 natural roughness of the grass. The ground sloped 



