54 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



and dreamed of it for weeks. The future day at length came, 

 and intently had Passingham watched for it. We had had a 

 fast thing, and Claret had carried his master much to his satis- 

 faction. In the open-hearted good -humour of the moment, 

 Hammersley exclaimed to Passingham, " By the Lord, Passing- 

 ham, that was a sharp thing ! " The young farmer drew himself 

 up with an assumption of great dignity, and sticking out his leg 

 and bending it at the knee in a peculiar way of his own, so as 

 to reverse the action of the joint, and give the limb the shape of 

 a bird's leg, " My eye ! " he cried, " I never allows no one to call 

 me by my name without a mister to it, unless he's been properly 

 interdooced ! " We all of us burst out laughing, save Captain 

 Hammersley, who twirled the ends of his immense moustache, 

 and, as he turned away, muttered the words, " cursed puppy ! " 



At the close of a very good run with a powerful stag, and 

 while I was endeavouring to secure him, the deer, with all the 

 hounds at his haunches, trotted down the footpath, not far 

 from Shepherd's Bush, on the Uxbridge road, in front of some 

 cottages. To my astonishment, I saw an oldish man emerge 

 from his house and walk along the path to meet the stag, with 

 an outstretched hand, as if he had been going to catch a cart- 

 horse by the forelock, or a donkey by the ear. I called to him 

 to get out of the way, but the noise the hounds made, I suppose, 

 di-owned what I said, and he met the deer as I describe. The deer 

 plunged at him, and took him right in the pit of the stomach. 

 The old man fell as if he were shot, and lay on his back like a 

 corpse by the side of what I afterwards found were his garden 

 rails, and into which garden hounds and stag entei'ed. I was 

 off my horse, and about to grapple with the stag, when heavy 

 blows mingled with the yells of hounds made me look round, 

 and I saw a young man livid with rage, with one leg, supporting 

 himself on one crutch, while, sledge-hammer like, with the other 

 he felled every hound he could get near. He had not his wooden 

 leg on, so I wrenched the cratch from him on which he leaned ; 

 but, to my surprise, he commenced a series of quick and violent 

 hoppings, laying about him still. I had nothing left for it but 



