152 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



many younger riders might well have imitated, was there as 

 usual to welcome the pack with which he had hunted all his 

 life, and to give his kindly and most useful advice to the 

 master. The deer on being turned out went straight away 

 in the Windmill Hill near Ruislip, then over some large 

 fields rather deep in places, the fences being strong but 

 mostly negotiable, in the direction of Pinner, crossing the 

 London and North-Western Eailway between Pinner and 

 Harrow stations. Here, to the best of my recollection, we 

 had our first check ; distance, about seven miles. The deer 

 appeared to have been headed soon after crossing the line, 

 and to have amused itself in running up and down some of 

 the high fences. The hounds after some little delay, having 

 caught sight of him, the deer again put his head straight across 

 the vale, leaving the hospitable roof of Mr. Brown at Hinton 

 on the right, under the Midland Railway between Edgware 

 and Mill Hill stations. Up High Wood Hill (a good pull up 

 with a tired horse) by Totteridge Park to Chipping Barnet, 

 where he went into a pond and was quickly captured. 



' At this distance of time, twenty-five years, I cannot well 

 recollect the names of those who went through the run, but 

 I know they were very few. Shirley of Twickenham, who 

 possessed, after Jem Mason,' perhaps, the finest hands in 

 England, and was a good all-round sportsman, was certainly 

 there. As I often told him, he was a bad man to follow, as 

 whatever the fence might be, he never hustled his horse nor 

 seemed to increase his pace, which on this occasion I found 

 out to my discomfiture, as at the last fence but one he 

 brought me down in consequence of this wonderful art, over 

 a brook with a cut-away bank on the landing side. Fortu- 



' A story is told of Jem Mason riding the line of hounds over a stake and 

 bound country without a mistake when the ditches were full of snow, and in 

 many cases on the take-ofif side, the take-off itself thus being a matter of guess- 

 work. This is a dazzling illustration of 'hands ' and of what can be done. 



