BAjVKS and ditches 175 



field was on the ]^ucks side. Mr. Shackle of Kedlcaf 

 was the hero of this incident, on a well-bred black horse 

 he owned in 189*2. It was charmingly done, and the black 

 horse landed noiselessly on his hind legs on to a rough ser- 

 vice roadway leading into some farm buildings. I nearly 

 Absalomised myself by jumping the fence alongside into an 

 orchard with apple-trees of the most gnarled and deformed 

 description. The gate, too, was new, painted black ; the next 

 worst colour to white. 



The Slough country, with its once popular meets, I 

 consider quite unsuitable to stag-hunting; it is distinguished 

 by almost every characteristic you don't want — population, 

 wire, a river, a canal, a railway, cabbages, strong wheat 

 land, and soggy grass with a black subsoil. The opening 

 meet at Salt Hill is one of those institutions which can no 

 longer be defended in practice. In 1893, I remember, we 

 spent the whole of our time — it seemed ver}^ long — crossing 

 and recrossing the river by Maidenhead Bridge, finally taking 

 the deer in Weston's yard before a large assembly of Eton 

 boys and maidservants. It was stag-hunting at its very 

 worst. Indeed, I have often thought the best thing a.bout 

 these teeming flats between Bray and AYindsor — which I 

 admit sometimes carried a scent — were the varying prospects 

 of Windsor, rising like an enchanted castle into the clearer 

 sky out of the lilac-blue haze which broods upon the low 

 horizons of the Thames Valley, Often and often I have 

 thanked Windsor with loyal satisfaction for that stately out- 

 line of towers and terraces, and felt compensated for a stupid 

 hunt. 



But now let me take my readers to the banks and ditches 

 of Berkshire. Most of the glad emotions so pleasantly 

 recalled to us by Mr. Bromley-Davenport in the couj^lets 

 quoted at the head of this chapter, are to be had for the ask- 

 ing by the stag-hunter ; indeed, if there is a scent and] the 



