48 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTER II 



THE KEW SCHOOL 



The good of other times let others state, 

 I think it hicky I was born so late 



In 1813 the historic Charlton hunt was broken up. The 

 Eegent acquired the Goodwood hounds by gift from the 

 fourth Duke of Richmond, and Charles Davis went to the 

 Ascot kennels as first whipper-in under Sharpe, his future 

 father-in-law. 



Mr. Mellish, Master of the Epping Forest Hounds, had 

 been robbed and murdered one evening on his way home 

 after hunting with the King's hounds and dining at the Bush 

 in Staines ; and from this time a couple of boys on horse- 

 back used to be sent out with the Buckhounds whenever 

 George III. hunted. Each boy carried a brace of horse 

 pistols, which at the end of the day they handed to the yeo- 

 men prickers who rode home alongside of the king. Accord- 

 ing to the 'Druid,' Charles Davis started as one of these boys. 

 The ' Druid ' in his own line, and within the very differing 

 limits of his opportunities, was as felicitous a compiler of 

 hearsay as Boswell. Take, for instance, his drive with Dick 

 Christian in 'Silk and Scarlet.' He gives to everything he 

 hears from others a visible flash of life and character which 

 makes it, as it were, fasten upon the eye as you read. Some- 

 times, perhaps, he relates what he would have liked to 

 hear in addition to what he heard. When his admirers 

 gave him a dinner in 1859, Charles Davis himself told them 



