252 COYERT-SIDE SKETCHES, 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE CHASE OF THE CARTED DEER. 



Hunters are fretting, and hacks in a lather, 

 Sportsmen arriving from left and from right ; 

 Bridle-roads bringing them — see how they gather. 

 Dotting the meadows with scarlet and white. 

 Foot-people staring, and horsemen preparing, 

 Now there's a murmur, a stir, and a shout; 

 Fresh from his carriage, as bridegroom in marriage, 

 The lord of the valley leaps gallantly out. 



I NOW come to consider a perfectly different kind of stag or 

 deer-hunting from either or any of those of which I have before 

 treated — that is the turned-out deer. It is stag-hunting, it is 

 true, but there could scarcely be conceived chases of a more 

 different character than that of the wild and the carted deer. 

 Personally I cannot say that I am an admirer of the latter diver- 

 sion, nor can I see why hunting a bag-fox is cried down and 

 reprobated as unsportsmanlike, while men consider they are 

 quite orthodox in their sporting creed, who are content to turn 

 out and catch again a carted deer — the only difference being that 

 the fox is generally killed, while the deer, being so much 

 more valuable and difficult to procure, is saved. (Lord Lons- 

 dale and Mr. George Templer, of Stover, always saved their 

 bag-foxes if possible, and both constantly hunted them.) 

 Nevertheless, there are so many who are of a different opinion, 

 and who are so passionately devoted to the sport, that I cannot 

 entirely pass it over. Many plead — very justifiably, I admit — 

 that here they can depend on having a certain gallop at a 



