TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

structions about my bag being called for and taken
out to the Kennels from Downfield. He told me to be
sure to bring a rug for my horse as he was "terrible
short of clothing". My belongings were to be con-
veyed to the Kennels on the "flesh-cart", which
would be in Downfield that day. I was surprised
that he should take so much trouble, for I had yet to
learn how methodical and thorough he was in
everything which he undertook.

I remember nothing of that day's hunting; but the
usual terse entry in my diary perpetuates the fact that
the meet was at "The Barley Mow". "Found in
Pilton Shaw and Crumpton Osiers, but did little
with either as scent was rotten. Weather very wet in
afternoon; had quite a good hunt of nearly two hours
from Trodger's Wood; hounds were stopped in Basset
Wood at 4.25," The concluding words, "Stayed at
the Kennels", now seem a very bleak condensation
of the event. But it did not occur to me that my
sporting experiences would ever be called upon to
provide material for a book, and I should have been
much astonished if I could have foreseen my present
efforts to put the clock back (or rather the calendar)
from 1928 to 1911.

Yet I find it easy enough to recover a few minutes
of that grey south-westerly morning, with its horse-
men hustling on in scattered groups, the December
air alive with the excitement of the chase, and the
dull green landscape seeming to respond to the
rousing cheer of the huntsman's voice when the
hounds hit off the line again after a brief check.
Away they stream, throwing up little splashes of
water as they race across a half-flooded meadow,
Cockbird flies a fence with a watery ditch on the
take-off side. "How topping", I think, "to be alive

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