82 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTEE lY 



DEBATEABLE LAND 



As it was my privilege to think with my own reason ; so it was my duty 

 to see with my own eyes. — Gibbon's Autohiograj)hy. 



' The great difficulty is the Master of the Horse.' So writes 

 Horace Walpole in one of his most serious letters to Mr. 

 Montague in 1760. Those were the braver clays of Court 

 appointments and Court influences. Yet a Walpole or a 

 Charles Greville of 1892 might have written much the same 

 of the Master of the Buckhounds. Although perhaps a little 

 of the Bottom type, this ancient officer of state was quite a 

 lion in the path of Mr. Gladstone's last administration. 



The difficulty in 1760 lay in the choice of the office- 

 holder and the rivalries of claimants. That was certainly not 

 the case in 1892, for, if anything, Mr. Gladstone had more 

 places than peers. The question was whether there were 

 to be any Buckhounds. Their situation was precarious. 

 Hunting has always been more or less associated with 

 Tory principles and machinations, and the Buckhounds 

 w'ere represented in several party newspapers as being kept 

 for the amusement of a dissolute and exclusive gentry. 

 Social reformers both in and out of the new" House of 

 Commons were actively hostile. And it is not to be wondered 

 at that the party wirepullers inclined to compromise. 



In the event — in spite of the menaces and exhortations 

 of an excited section of our press — it was decided to appoint 



