TIMES ARE ALTERED. 33 



The description of persons that form the ma- 

 jority of a field at its fixture, for the case is 

 often quite different after a trying burst, depends 

 greatly on the locality of the hunt. When the 

 late Lord Darlington hunted the Raby country, 

 of course such a thing as a man residing in 

 London was never seen out; but when Her 

 Majesty^s hounds turn out at the Magpies, Stoke 

 Common, or ^Maidenhead Thicket, Londoners 

 form no inconsiderable portion of the field. For- 

 tunately for Davis, there is as yet no rail within 

 some miles of his residence at the Kennel, other- 

 wise so capital a companion, horseman, and hunts- 

 man, liked and respected as he is by all who 

 know him, would be fairly eaten out of house and 

 home by voracious friends. As it is, he owes no 

 kindness to railroads ; but make one to Ascot 

 Heath, and if he did not anathematise the projector 

 of it, he would be more than human. When as a 

 boy and youth I had eight seasons with these 

 hounds, I invariably found that, if they turned 

 out at Tower Hill, or near Easthamstead Park, 

 the field consisted of thirty or forty gentlemen 

 and a farmer or two; if the Magpies was the 

 fixtm-e, even in those days such a motley group 

 assembled there as called for the exertions and 

 watchfulness of the yeomen Prickers, as much to 

 save the hounds in the beginning of the chase as 

 the deer at the end of it. 



