VERY EARLY HUNTING DAYS 5 



My father drew pictures for us, and mine, I 

 remember, always had to be on some animal. 

 To tease me he generally depicted me side-saddle 

 upon a pig, my small form comically attired in 

 top hat and tight habit. 



No perfectly cut garment from Scott will ever 

 give me the keen joy of my first cut down habit, 

 an old one of my mother's. A light blue thing, 

 with black braid on it and little coat tails. This 

 lapped across me somehow, and the tail twisted 

 round my small legs, became mine when I was 

 eight, together with a saddle resembling the Beast 

 in Revelation — a thing of many horns. It 

 materiaUsed out of the gloom of a chill November 

 morning, put into my room when I was asleep, and 

 I think I turned every buckle, and knew every 

 line, and its smell of dressed leather was as in- 

 cense. 



Children did not get everything they wanted in 

 those days, and I had dreamt of a saddle as a 

 far-off possibility. Poor Topsy, she must have 

 regretted its arrival. 



My father and mother both hunted, though 

 she never had a trained hunter. I have always 

 seen her on raw three year olds, and even her iron 

 nerves gave way. Curiously, just before she died, 

 her mind affected by a stroke, her one idea was to 

 ride again and she was always begging, childishly, 

 to be taken out for a hunt. 



My father was fond of it too in a milder way. 



