116 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



I have noi wish to lay down, any hard and fixed line on this 

 particmlar subject, but I am fairly certain that this love of 

 sport obtains greatly in some countries, and is almost, non- 

 exisitent in others. It is perhaps as strongly marked on 

 Exmoor as anywhere else, for it is impossible to ride home from 

 any hunt with the Devon and Somerset. Staghounds without 

 being asked by every man, woman, and child if the stag was 

 taken, and, if so, where the stag wa& taken. I once amused 

 myself by counting the number of questioners on a, ride from 

 Dulvertou to Porlook Weir, and, though I have forgotten the 

 number, it was very large, and, probably because it was not 

 very lat© in the afternoon, most of the inquirers were women, 

 standing at the cottage dooi's. In thei north one is questioned 

 in just the same way during a ride home from hunting, the query 

 being made by all of the children and moat of the labourers 

 one meets going home from work; but the interest does not 

 extend to the women as it does on Exmoor. In Surrey, too, 

 the countryside is very anxious to know where the 3ta.g was 

 taken, and seiems hardly able to undersitand that one may have 

 been hunting with foxhounds when the staghounds were out. 

 I remember riding with two friends through the village of 

 Bleothingley after a day with the Burstow many years ago, 

 on a particalarly gloomy evening, when a voice came out. of 

 the darkness asking where the stag was taken. " Brighton," 

 answered one of our party, and as quick aa lightning came the 



rejoinder, " You're a liar ! " " Dill ye kill, miste^r? " 



or ' ' How many foxes have ye catch ed ? " is what the school 

 children ask in these northern hunts, and if the homeward 

 ride happens to take in a village or two the query is so fre- 

 quent as tO' become most wearing. And & propos, riding 

 through a village on a dark night; during a day's hunting in 

 the Braes of Derwent country at the time of the South African 

 War, a hound which had been lame in the morning had been 

 taken by a whipper-in to a village half a mile off, to be picked 

 up after the sport was over. As it happened, the whipper-in 

 was new to the country, and when we reached the village (I was 

 going home with hounds) he could not locate the cottage he had 

 left the hound at owing to the darkness. One or two inquiries 

 were fruitless, and at length someone shouted a question aa 

 to whether anyone knew where the hound was. " What's 



