8o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



on his features was severe and serious, and I cannot help 

 thinking that his riding to hounds may have been a little 

 wanting in geniality — perfect in form and satisfying in 

 result— but somehow wanting in that impalpable quality 

 which makes riding over an intricate country with certain 

 people so amusing. In a point-to-point steeplechase Jem 

 Mason rode Lottery over a locked gate 5 ft. 6 in. high, 

 off a newly-stoned road, in preference to a hairy bullfinch at 

 the side. ' I'll be hanged,' he said to his friends when they 

 were walking over the ground, ' if I am going to scratch my 

 face, for I am going to the opera to-night ' ; and Lottery 

 jumped it like an antelope. There was no shadow of turning 

 about Davis, but he would never have said that. Doubtless, 

 had it been a question of rescuing the Trump or the Miller, 

 he would have ridden over the gate, but he would have done 

 it with the somewhat disixial zeal of a permanent official, 

 rather than the zest of a man of pleasure. I admit 5 ft. 

 6 in. high, and the take-off would make most people feel 

 grave. 



Perhaps, too, Davis took himself a little seriously. He 

 read the newspapers religiously ; went to church regularly ; 

 never had a horse out on Sundays ; made an excellent 

 speech ; favoured the Whigs in politics. All these things 

 contributed to make up a valuable and respectable citizen. 

 Moreover, the even and deserved prosperity of his career, his 

 converse — almost identity — with great personages, and the 

 responsible authority of his position may easily have induced 

 a certain semi-royal aloofness. I feel confident that he 

 was never in anything like a scrape — this is of itself quite 

 a misfortune — and I question whether he ever had much to 

 do with the scrapes and shifts of others. Under the startling 

 influence of gratitude, Tom Oliver once swore a great oath 

 that he would fight up to his knees in blood for Jem Mason, 

 who had won him 100/. with Trust-Me-Not, relieved him of 



