176 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



Queen's field are in the humour — which, to do them justice, 

 they invariably are — and if the deer goes the right way 

 from Hawthorn Hill, it is very possible to rejoice in your 

 cropper at the first fence which happens to be a very 

 typical example of the Queen's bank and ditch country. 



There are no oxers — nor need this be a matter of inex- 

 tinguishable regret — and very little timber. Mr. Van de 

 Weyer's fine grass land around New Lodge was fenced with 

 rood upon rood of uniform post and railings, but I do not 

 think I can remember seeing them jumped. One day 

 when we nearly ran straight over this bit of country, I 

 thought of doing it, but there it ended. The rails are not 

 very high, but they are painted black, and they stand up out 

 of the level fields with horrid integrity without a suspicion 

 of a lean from you. The geometry of their alignments gives 

 the whole affair a building-plot look ; and in bold relief 

 several hunting gates are painted a staring white, and open 

 easily and quickly. It requires moral as well as physical 

 courage to resist such a conspiracy. A sporting doctor was 

 the only conspicuous exponent in my time of timber jump- 

 ing. He had a white horse and a bay horse, which like him- 

 self were both highly versed in the art, but he literally had to 

 hunt for opportunities of exhibiting their talents. 



There is no water either in the Berkshire side of the 

 Queen's country ; that is, no jumpable water. The not-to-be 

 denied stag-hunter will have frequent opportunities of swim- 

 ming if so minded, but very few of pounding the field over 

 a bumping brook. Take them all through, the fences are 

 mostly of the deferential breed ; you seldom come to the 

 sort of place which Jem Mason described as comprising 

 eternal misery on one side and certain death on the other ; 

 or of the character so neatly suggested by a hard-riding 

 nobleman to his huntsman : ' What's the other side, my 

 Lord ? ' ' Thank God, I am.' 



