274 HUNTING. 



another station, have travelled on wheels at least a dozen miles. 

 After the day's sport, the same toil has been necessary to bring me 

 home to dinner at eight. This has been work for a young man 

 and a rich man, but I have done it as an old man and compara- 

 tively a poor man. 



In giving his preference to ' the Baron ' over Mr. Lowndes, 

 ' Trollope, it is to be presumed, meant only to signify that to one 

 hunting after this fashion the certainty of a gallop of some sort 

 was the cardinal point to be aimed at. He was too good a 

 sportsman to wilfully prefer riding after the uncarted deer to the 

 real hunting of the fox. But the fox is an uncertain beast. You 

 may not find him at home ; and when you do you may not pre- 

 vail on him to leave it, or at any rate to leave it in such a way 

 as will conduce most to your pleasure. A blank day, or a day 

 spent in pottering about from covert to covert with a cold scent, 

 or in splashing up and down knee-deep in muddy woodlands, 

 are clearly things to be avoided if possible by one who has 

 travelled far for his fun and has not many hours to spare for it. 

 By agreeing to satisfy yourself with such imitation of hunting, as 

 the pursuit of the paddock-fed deer provides, you do avoid such 

 things. You are sure of your game at any rate, and sure of a gallop 

 of some sort, even if it be mainly along the hard high road which, 

 however, is a contingency much rarer with the Rothschild than 

 with the Royal pack. Again, the Staghounds meet at a later 

 hour, the Queen's and Lord de Rothschild's at 11.30, the Mid 

 Kent at 1 2 : and of course the fun is over much sooner. The 

 hours, therefore, both of one's going and coming are more 

 convenient. A train, for example, leaves Euston at 9, which 

 lands you at Winslow at 10.32. Tring you can reach at 10.19, 

 starting a quarter of an hour later ; the same hour serves for 

 Aylesbury, where you will arrive at 10.50, while Leighton can 

 be reached at 10.24 by the 9.30 train. Every Tuesday and 

 Friday, the days on which the Queen's hounds hunt, the Great 

 Western Company run a special train to the station nearest to 

 the place of meeting, which is never very far off. Maidstone, 

 Tunbridge, and Mailing, are the towns most convenient to the 



