124 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



game when they are thrown off." ' Mr. Russell's reverend 

 compeer was an excellent judge of what a staghound should 

 not do. 



I alluded just now to Mr. Nevill's hounds. Mr. Thomas 

 Nevill was the younger brother of Mr. Benjamin Nevill, 

 of Chilland, between Winchester and Alresford. These 

 gentlemen were Hampshire yeomen, of old and honourable 

 descent, and were possessed of considerable means. Mr. 

 T. Nevill rented Chilland House from his brother, and kept 

 a famous pack of St. Hubert staghounds from 1853 until 

 his death in 1878. In spite of his infirmities, he was 

 an enthusiastic stag-hunter, and was very constantly out 

 with the Queen's Hounds when they went into the New 

 Forest. He was obliged to use a saddle of a peculiar 

 make, in consequence of having injured his hip-joint 

 when a boy. It was supposed that he would never be 

 able to ride again. The saddle which he invented, how- 

 ever, enabled him, though enduring much pain, to hunt 

 his hounds, standing quite upright in the stirrups. ' I 

 cannot,' he writes, ' describe the pain I went through at 

 first, and still sometimes feel, or the narrow escapes I have 

 had from many falls from losing my balance; but, thank 

 (rod ! I made my saddle answer sufficiently to enjoy riding 

 to my hounds. I once rode from Chilland to the New Forest 

 to hunt with the Queen's Hounds, and had a magnificent 

 run from one end of the Forest to the other, a distance 

 calculated by my friend when I returned in the evening to 

 Chilland at 100 miles. My Dartmoor carried me through 

 the chase and half-way back ; then I took a forest horse 

 which brought me home.' Dartmoor was nearly thorough- 

 bred, but only 14| hands high. He is buried in a meadow 

 near the house, with a deer and many bloodhounds near him. 



Two or three days after I joined the depot at Winchester, 

 the sale of Mr. Nevill's effects was announced by his executors. 



