1 86 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



always gives that impression. It is a question whether he 

 can be headed, once he has made up his mind ; and this 

 accounts, to some extent, for the extraordinary places he 

 will run into. If he had meant crossing it, I do not think 

 Epsom Hill on a Derby day would have turned Guy 

 Fawkes. Thus staghounds, once they get settled, run on 

 at a pertinacious sort of speed, which most people must find 

 rather tiresome after a bit. There are none of the lightning 

 changes of temperature which illuminate a run with fox- 

 hounds. Staghounds, for instance, would seldom inspire a 

 ' Thirty quick minutes from Eanksborough Gorse,' written, 

 I believe, between dressing time and dinner in the congenial 

 atmosphere of stained leathers and a hot bath. But there are 

 exceptions to every rule, and there can be no question that 

 every now and then the Queen's Hounds, not only in pace, 

 but in their drive and fling, give you all the * vital feelings 

 of delight ' of the foxhound. 



It is a question whether you can ride ' cunning ' with 

 staghounds. In all kinds of hunting a really high post 

 and rail or a sullen brook are apt to develop the guile of the 

 Eed Indian. Very often this does not matter much when 

 fox-hunting. Horrible injustices often occur, and the battle 

 is often rather to the wary or the swift than to the brook- 

 and rail-jumpers. But with staghounds the event seldom 

 transforms hesitation into judgment. Once you begin to 

 hesitate, it is a hundred to one you see no more of the 

 gallop. One has to account for one's failure somehow, of 

 course ; you acted, for instance, upon a theory that the deer 

 would not go here or was making for there. I have occasion- 

 ally practised this self-deception upon others, but rarely with 

 any success upon myself. 



I remember especially missing the end of one of our 

 more or less classical runs from Shinfield, close to Beading. 

 We ran for a great number of miles under a needlessly 



