222 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



fox-liounds have. I can just remember ' little Jack Babbage ' as 

 huntsmau to the Devon and Somerset ; and a better servant, a 

 cheerier little fellow, no man ever saw. He was a good hunts- 

 man, and, notwithstanding the work he had to do, and the 

 length of chases he went through, he was never known to over- 

 mark his horse. Arthur Heal, who was his whip, and succeeded 

 him when at a ripe old age he quitted the horn, is a very quick 

 man indeed — one who can gallop with a will — and that not only 

 on forest or heath, but along paths and sheep-tracks on the Combe 

 sides, where, it appears, a goat would scarcely get safe foothold. 

 He gets his hounds very quickly on the back of his deer when 

 once forced away, and presses them along in a style that, with 

 an old, heavy stag, brings it sometimes to a premature conclu- 

 sion. In fact, he has gone in for the short, sharp, and decisive 

 style. His whip is George Southwell, who has seen a good deal 

 of hunting with the Vine and in Cambridgeshire, and was with 

 fox-hounds a good man. I have never seen him with the deer, 

 but, from all I know, I should say few better successors could 

 have been found to poor George Fe wings, who literally died in 

 harness, a year or two ago, from a bad cold caught during the 

 hind-hunting season in the neighbourhood of Porlock. I^ow I 

 must take leave of wild stag-hunting, and I can only say, in 

 conclusion, may its present revival last (I hope it will, as there 

 are some good young ones coming on) ; may the herds all but 

 extinct thirty years ago increase and multiply, and the sport 

 become more popular year by year ! Let, however, all who 

 enjoy it remember that deer do a great deal of damage, which 

 must he paid for, and that it is the place, I hope the pleasure, 

 of all strangers who enjoy the sport to help find the means of 

 doin^? it." 



