Hunting in the Isle of Wight, 277 



here and there a giant geranium, with its lower ex- 

 tremities wrapped in swaddling clothes, huddling in 

 a corner, whilst "bitter blew the blast,^' and an 

 eastern blast, too, that shrivelled one up until one^s 

 resemblance to a Normandy pippin was apparent, if 

 painful; and when I arose the following morning it 

 was to find the earth icebound, the roads like cast- 

 iron, and it was evident there would be no hunting on 

 that day. 



There, as I sat before a blazing fire, listening to 

 the music that the wild waves made, I reflected 

 that, after all, I ought not to grumble at my lot, for 

 this is the first day^s hunting I have lost through frost 

 during the present season — a somewhat remarkable 

 fact. In this state of forced inactivity there was 

 nothing left but to recall the pleasures of the past, 

 and I ran over in my mind the diSerent packs of 

 hounds I had ridden with since hunting began. 

 Commencing first on the 31st August, be it observed, 

 with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, when 

 for the first time I beheld the grand sight of a 

 " warrantable ^' deer — a " stag of ten ^^ — breaking 

 cover, and going away at a rattling pace over the 

 beautiful heather-clad hills which look down on the 

 smiling vale of Taunton, along the emerald green 

 valleys, across the sparkling streamlets, through the 

 lovely and leafy " coombes,^-' which form so beautiful 

 a feature in parts of Devon and Somerset, until the 

 noble animal having outpaced the eager hounds, took 

 refuge in a friendly copse, and " laid up,^^ as is the 

 custom of the wild red deer, when hardly pressed, 

 thus for a while bafi&ing his pursuers, and bringing 

 the hounds to a check. Not long, however, is he 



