46o THE BEST OF THE FUN 



found ourselves splashing through a sea of muddy spray, 

 along the firm, wet rides of the great mass of wood known 

 as Island Thorns. At best pace we rode blindly on, up 

 hill and down, round and about, always in pursuit of 

 Allen and his echoing horn, while the deep notes of the 

 tufters were occasionally to be caught from right or left or 

 front. This went on till, as we reached the farther end of 

 the next great woodland (Sloden), we found ourselves 

 emerging almost in company with four deer, a small 

 antlered buck, two does, and a bigger buck whose horns 

 had already been shed. At the same moment it was 

 reported that the tufters had separated yet another buck 

 from this band ; and him, after the well-trained hounds 

 had been secured, we proceeded to hunt with the main 

 pack. It has ever seemed to me that the hot, jolly 

 scramble with the tufters while the bucks are being 

 separated is by no means the least enjoyable part of the 

 sport. 



In laying-on to a deer there is never any of the hurry 

 to " get away on his brush " that belongs to a start with a 

 fox. Discussion and counsel, among the assembled heads 

 of departments, is not only the customary prelude, ren- 

 dered necessary by the desire to make sure of the best 

 buck and his route, but is comfortably admissible inas- 

 much as, unlike the fox, the buck seldoms travels on far 

 till he finds himself pushed ; and, moreover, let him be 

 gone, say, a quarter of an hour (whole hours, if you wish, 

 sometimes), the degree of scent he leaves upon his trail is 

 little less vivid than at first tread. 



Some little confusion of deer continued during the 

 next twenty minutes or so, our buck having apparently 

 rejoined others. But all at once he crossed the road by 

 the Powder Mills almost among us ; the hounds were laid 

 on afresh on the best of terms, and off we set westward 

 through a wilderness of holly-bush and timber — the wood 

 of Anses, if I am correct — the pack now all together, and 

 maintaining a capital chorus. With a horse well used to 

 the Forest, it was pleasant and comparatively easy to main- 

 tain touch of hounds, swing round this tree, shaving that ; 

 swishing between holly-bushes and earning their spur-marks 



