200 THE SOUTH DEVON HUNT 



so did CoUings, as I learnt afterwards. He then 

 accounted for the curious turn of the hounds by the 

 fact of their having heard us on the other side of the 

 wall, and so turned towards the horses ; but it 

 deceived him for the moment and led him to think 

 the fox might have turned short back. 



There are moments, too, when every huntsman, on 

 the principle of " the other Tom Smith's " celebrated 

 all-round-my-hat cast, will make a -eery short back- 

 ward cast first with the sole object of making a wider 

 one for'ard than he would otherwise dare to do. Some 

 people cannot distinguish between such cases and the 

 instinctive try-back of the hare-hunter. 



CoUings's patience was equalled by his persever- 

 ance, and the keynote of the whole was his innate love 

 of hunting. He would never leave off as long as there 

 was a chance of hunting up to his fox; he was 

 always trying, and never resorted to the proceeding 

 of " working out the day." 



He was also an extraordinarily hard man. ^Mien 

 the first bad outbreak of influenza occurred — I think 

 it was in or about the year 1891, when so many 

 prominent people, including the Duke of Clarence, 

 were carried off — several hunts which had no under- 

 study to their huntsman, and some that had, were 

 compelled to stop hunting tlu-ough the staff being 

 laid low. Collings got it, and a pretty bad attack ; 

 but he did not miss a single day's hunting. On 

 another occasion, with a cold so bad that he could not 

 speak above a whisper, he insisted on coming out, and 

 the field grumbled because " Collings was so beastly 

 quiet " ! Yet another time, he hunted hounds with a 

 broken collar-bone and his arm in a sling. 



His hound language was good, and he had a capital 

 voice and a good note on the horn. You could 



