8o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



on his features was severe and serious, and I cannot help 

 thinking that his riding to hounds may have been a little 

 wanting in geniaHty— perfect in form and satisfying in 

 result— but somehow wanting in that impalpable quahty 

 which makes riding over an intricate country with certain 

 people so amusing. In a point-to-point steeplechase Jem 

 Mason rode Lottery over a locked gate 5 ft. G in. high, 

 off a newly-stoned road, in preference to a hairy bullfinch at 

 the side. ' I'll be hanged,' he said to his friends when they 

 were walking over the ground, ' if I am going to scratch my 

 face, for I am going to the opera to-night ' ; and Lottery 

 jumped it hke an antelope. There was no shadow of turning 

 about Davis, but he would never have said that. Doubtless, 

 had it been a question of rescuing the Trump or the Miller, 

 he would have ridden over the gate, but he would have done 

 it with the somewhat dismal zeal of a permanent official, 

 rather than the zest of a man of pleasure. I admit 5 ft. 

 6 in. high, and the take-off would make most people feel 

 grave. 



Perhaps, too, Davis took himself a little seriously. He 

 read the newspapers religiously ; went to church regularly ; 

 never had a horse out on Sundays; made an excellent 

 speech ; favoured the Whigs in politics. All these things 

 contributed to make up a valuable and respectable citizen. 

 Moreover, the even and deserved prosperity of his career, his 

 converse— almost identity— with great personages, and the 

 responsible authority of his position may easily have induced 

 a certain semi-royal aloofness. I feel confident that he 

 was never in anything like a scrape — this is of itself quite 

 a misfortune- and I question whether he ever had much to 

 do with the scrapes and shifts of others. Under the startling 

 influence of gratitude, Tom Oliver once swore a great oath 

 that he would fight up to his knees in blood for Jem Mason, 

 who had won him lOOZ. with Trust-Me-Not, relieved him of 



