146 THE TRINITY FOOT BEAGLES 



Who knew the tavernes well m every towne 

 And everych hostiler and tapestere. 



And " tapster " in those days was, I believe, feminine, and meant a 

 barmaid. The sporting man is a low-caste gambling pothouse fellow, 

 and of parsons of that sort one hopes there are none. But Chaucer 

 presents also another type in the monk who, whatever his departure 

 from the rule of " poverty," which is not our concern now, " loved 

 venerye " and was a sportsman proper who — 



Yaf not of that texte a pulled hen 



That seith that hunters ben noon holy men. 



And whatever we may think of his luxurious fur-lined clothes, and 

 the choice ambling palfrey of his pilgrimage, his judgment as to the 

 compatibility of holiness and hunting is surely sound, as the following 

 examples amply prove. 



English Bishops in the Middle Ages enjoyed special hunting 

 privileges in the Royal Forests. Juxon, the Bishop of London, who 

 attended King Charles the Martyr on the scaffold, kept his pack of 

 " good " hounds. Bishop Andrewes, who was a saint, and like many 

 saints of a playful, witty disposition, would rise from his private 

 devotions and propose going out into the park to shoot a buck,^ and 

 Parson Jack Russel, though perhaps no saint, was a straight, clean- 

 living English gentleman who did his duty in accordance with his 

 lights. Personally, I once knew a parish priest who had a far more 

 extended and intensive view of his sacerdotal duties, and who also 

 " loved venerye " and " yaf not of that texte, etc." He was what 

 would colloquially be called a pronounced " ritualist." He went 

 abroad to visit the souls of his cure in his cassock, kept his Fridays 

 strictly, and was a celibate, and, though you may not agree with his 

 views, you must admit that he lived up to them. He had also a 

 prejudice against servants of any kind, indoor or out ; this last was 

 not a principle but a " freak." He groomed his own horses, cooked 

 his own food, dusted his own rooms, and when you were staying with 

 him valeted you himself, hating " paid hands " as vigorously as 

 does any " hardy Corinthian " yachtsman. Once when I had shoot- 

 ^ The Bishops of Winchester to this day maintain a deer park at Farnham. 



