276 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



stag-hunting in Berkshire has degenerated ; and what with 

 railroads and embryo sportsmen, with whom he had to deal on 

 metropolitan days, his love of a hound must have been sorely 

 tried. In him, upon these occasions, we saw, in the best of 

 servants, a man horn to command, l^o man could take a liberty 

 with him." 



As a huntsman — that is, an exponent of the art of capturing 

 a wild animal — there was no chance of forming an opinion of 

 Davis's qualifications, except in the few times when the hounds 

 were taken into the I^ew Forest, and the country was strange 

 both to him and them. These outings took place just before 

 my day, so I can say personally nothing about them; and, 

 moreover, in April, the stag has not recovered the effect of the 

 rutting season and his winter's hardships ; so that, if they did 

 not show the sport that is seen in Devonshire, it is little to be 

 wondered at. I believe that Davis was, however, considered to 

 have done all that was necessary as a huntsman to procure 

 sport, and the crowds who there assembled were sent away 

 satisfied. As a horseman Davis stood quite in the front rank, 

 and was not to be beaten in any country, although there were 

 "giants in those days;" and the party who met at the club 

 which the Earl of Errol established in the Aylesbury Vale were 

 by no means of the milk-and-water order. Lord Alvanley found 

 that he was not to be caught in the great run from Salt Hill to 

 the Old Berkeley kennels, and his lordship, who, as Wartnaby 

 of Clipston said, was, with Gumley "Wilson, the only two 

 who " ever rode straight across his farm," had to play second 

 — and a bad second too — to Davis. On another occasion he had 

 twenty minutes the best of every one, on the first clipped horse 

 he ever rode — consequently called the Clipper — and had no 

 one save a miller and his men for that time to aid him in his 

 ditch struggles with his deer. He rode all, or nearly all, his 

 horses in a snaffle, for which many have been unable to account ; 

 but I believe the true solution is that he was by no means a 

 strong man, though his seat was grace and elegance itself; and 



