HORSES AND HOUNDS. 153 



slumbers were prolonged to a rather late hour on tlie following 

 morning, much to the delight of my good-natured host. Soon 

 after breakfast I was obliged to take leave of the worthy- 

 Mr. Thomas Palmer, whose name, I have no doubt, is still 

 remembered in those parts with esteem and regret, as one 

 of the good old school of English yeomen now fast passing away. 



Taking my route over the Downs, with the hounds all m 

 couples, except this one dog named Deputy, and a favourite 

 old greyhound, a hare suddenly jumped up in view, and off 

 went Deputy, Avith the greyhound after her. I checked back 

 the other hounds, and rode on to the top of the hill to see how 

 this affair would end, little expecting my old friend Nimrod 

 could manage a Down hare, wliich are generally both stout and 

 fleet. A severe course ensued up and down the hills, the fox- 

 hound coming in for his turn occasionally ; and at last, to my 

 great delight, they managed to overhaul poor puss. No sooner 

 had this feat been performed, and the hare safely deposited in 

 my valise, strapped to the pommel of the saddle, than a party 

 of coursers made their appearance, in search of the very hare 

 which I had just snugly stowed away. She had been found 

 sitting by a shepherd, who had gone off to give intelligence to 

 the coursers, whose sport I had thus unfortunately marred. It 

 so happened, that one of the party was a friend, to whose house 

 I was then wending my way ; and, after dinner, when relating 

 the circumstance, and regretting the run they had lost, I told 

 him the hare was quite at his service, and I would send her to 

 him the next morning. He thought I was joking, at first, and 

 would scarcely believe that, with a single greyhound, assisted 

 only by a fox-hound, I could have mastered one of their famous 

 Down hares. Deputy's schooling was not improved by this 

 outbreak, and I had some trouble afterwards in breaking him 

 from hare, but in the second season he became quite steady to 

 his own game, and was my right hand for several seasons after- 

 wards. Witli the scratch pack T had then got together, he was 

 my chief authority for a fox, and the moment his tongue was 

 heard, the other hounds would instantly fly to him. To those 

 who have never had the pleasure of forming a pack from the hete- 

 rogeneous elements, in the shape of hounds drafted from other 

 kennels, the comfort of having one really good and active dog 

 to depend upon, can scarcely be appreciated ; but this hound 

 was truly my Deputy in every sense of the word, and I could 

 not have deputed my authority to an abler assistant. 



This hound, so long a favourite, never quitted my kennels ; 

 and I must here plead guilty to an impeachment which has 

 often been laid to my charge, of being over soft (as my friends 



