ASCOT AND NEWBURY 295 



this sort do with its tremendous jaws if it pleased 

 to go at you ? Besides, I once was all alone in 

 a great German forest — one vast wild piggery 

 ■ — with nothing but slippery barked beech-trees 

 two or three feet through, and thirty up to the 

 first semblance of a branch. 



We cut across to the White Lodge and the 

 charming little church hard by, and then down 

 the hill and over to Sawyer's Gate, making 

 company then with the crowd who had padded it 

 up Queen Anne's Ride, the shortest, or, as a 

 Yorkshireman would say, the gainest way from 

 Windsor. You come out a little distance from 

 the starting end of the Royal Hunt Cup course's 

 alleged mile. My word ! what a hot day it was 

 that we did this walk, one of a whole row to be 

 mapped out in getting from Datchet to the 

 Grand Stand. Ascot week is by no means 

 always hot — nor dry. I have had many a 

 drenching on homeward journeys from the Royal 

 Heath. Which year was it I got wet to the 

 bone crossing the park from Sawyer's Gate to 

 the Union — another of the great chase's 

 entrances and exits ? Curious, is it not, that 

 close to the latter, which no doubt derives its 

 title from proximity to Old Windsor Workhouse 

 (which, I may once again repeat, is a beautiful 

 Queen - Anne - baronial - hall sort of structure, 

 designed by the late Sir Gilbert Scott, who only 

 beat the late Judge Clark by a head after a 

 dead-heat in competition for the job) is a near 

 neighbour to a ''Union" pub., another styled 

 the Oxford Blue, which between them give the 

 locality a strong 'Varsity flavour ? Let me explain 

 that our college (which is to be) would not 

 grumble at the temperature being low for our 



