i6o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



Thus the forest and the heather make up for much 

 which the encroachments of population have taken from the 

 wide provinces over which Charles Davis hunted the Queen's 

 Hounds thirty years ago. You cannot quite get rid of the 

 deer cart, nor of the mysterious attraction this ' very pulse 

 of the machine ' has for a considerable public on wheels 

 and on foot. Three large colleges, Mr. Waterer's extensive 

 nurseries, and the Gordon Boys' Home are disenchanting 

 occurrences ; and I remember a humiliating pursuit in the 

 grounds of the Eoyal Military College at Sandhurst, owing 

 to our civilian horses not liking the look of the abattis and 

 inundations, revetments and trous-de-loup which train our 

 youth to arms. But you can still ride for miles in certain 

 directions without meeting a soul or seeing a house. No cattle, 

 no sheep, only sand and heather, birch and fir, and sweeps 

 of yellow bog-grass. Eed brick, tarred palisades, and resi- 

 dential amenity stop short at the Bracknell and Bagshot road. 



I never dared to turn out on the sly, and, as it were, draw 

 through the forest until we hit the line.' It would have 

 disappointed so many people, and after all would only have 

 been a distinction and not a difference. Besides, in the 

 forest, at all events five minutes after hounds are laid 

 on, given a little luck and a little imagination, you are 

 hunting a wild animal in a country as wild as Uam Var. 



No one knew this country I have outlined better than 

 Charles Kingsley. He has described it in a way I can never 

 hope to arrive at. The thrill of hunting things was in his 

 blood. When I was a little boy, I was at a famous private 

 school at Winchester, kept by the Eev. C. A. Johns. Mr. 



' This is undoubtedly the right and ideal way to manage the uncarting. 

 Davis, I am told, always uncarted quite away from the crowd, and only put a 

 couple of old hounds on to keep the deer moving, thus saving him (the deer) 

 from being mobbed and bewildered and letting him get his bearings and make 

 his point. But in these days it would be very unpopular and almost impossible 

 to carry into effect. 



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