142 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTEE VII 



THE HARROW COUNTRY 



After years of life together, 

 After fair and stormy weather 



Will it evermore be thus 

 Spirits still impervious 



Are the bounds eternal set 

 To retain us — strangers yet ? 



Ale, in the Harrow country, was Charles Davis's favourite 

 meet. How often, during my own Mastership, have I 

 been congratulated upon being the hunting suzerain of 

 those elysian fields ! Nor is this to be wondered at. Few 

 people fond of hunting can travel northwards by any of our 

 great railways without for a few moments thinking a little 

 less affectionately of their own country ; without con- 

 trasting its uninviting ploughs, its bleak moorlands or its 

 cramped enclosures with the smooth sea of emerald, and 

 the virgin enclosures which Harrow spire commands. 



Alas ! the glory has departed. The Harrow country sur- 

 vives as a tradition. It has long ceased to be a fact in the 

 everyday life of the Royal pack. The hunt horses used to 

 go on to Uxbridge or Hillingdon the night before hunting, 

 but the stabling they occupied knows the welcome invaders 

 no more. Whyte Melville, I think, breaks Satanella's neck 

 and her rider's back in a newly drained pasture somewhere 

 out Pinner way. It would be a breach of the unities to do 

 so now. If the Queen's country is ever to be the scene of 



