1 88 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



which is always supposed to woo the affections of the hunted 

 red-deer. Not a bit of it. We never got to hounds again, and 

 I had twenty miles home to Beading, suffering from a hot 

 red coat, a spring headache, and that intolerable sense of 

 injustice which always accompanies well-merited misfor- 

 tune. 



A writer of some note of George III.'s day declared that 

 were the king once to see a fox well found and handsomely 

 killed he would give up the staghounds. He condemns 

 stag-hunting for its lack of ' ecstasy,' and the glorious 

 uncertainty which should distinguish hunting ; the sulky or 

 generous temper of the deer being the sole variety the stag- 

 hunter can count upon. It is true the stag-hunter recks 

 nothing of the hazards of a doubtful find, a wild night, a 

 chain of woodlands, and a main earth. But to say there 

 is no uncertainty is to say you have never ridden over 

 the banks and ditches of Berkshire after Bartlett or Guy 

 Fawkes. 



