a by-meet, and not known
to everybody.

"We will go on to Exford," said he, straddling his bicycle, "for though
the meet isn't to be there, there's where they keep the hounds and
horses, and if we make good speed we shall get there before they start
out."

The three of us travelled abreast, Mr. Poplington in the middle, and on
the way he told us a good deal about stag hunts. What I remember best,
having to go so fast and having to mind my steering, was that after the
hunting season began they hunted stags until a certain day--I forget
what it was--and then they let them alone and began to hunt the does;
and that after that particular day of the month, when the stags heard
the hounds coming they paid no attention to them, knowing very well it
was the does' turn to be chased, and that they would not be bothered;
and so they let the female members of their families take care of
themselves; which shows that ungentlemanliness extends itself even into
Nature.

When we got to Exford we left our cycles at the inn and followed Mr.
Poplington to the hunting stables, which are near by. I had not gone a
dozen steps from the door before I heard a great barking, and the next
minute there came around the corner a pack of hounds. They crossed the
bridge over the little river, and then they stopped. We went up to
them, and while Mr. Poplington talked to the men the whole of that pack
of hounds gathered about us as gentle as lambs. They were good big
dogs, white and brown. The head huntsman who had them in charge told me
there was thirty couple of them, and I thought that sixty dogs was
pretty heavy odds against one deer. Then they moved off as orderly as
if they had been children in a kindergarten, and we went to the stables
and saw the horses; and then the master of the hounds and a good many
other gentlemen in red coats, in all sorts of traps, rode up, and their
hunters were saddled, and the dogs barked and the men cracked their
whips to keep them together, and there was a bustle and liveliness to a
degree I can't write about, and Jone and I never thought about going in
to breakfast until all those horses, some led and some ridden, and the
men and the hounds, and even the dust from their feet, had disappeared.

I wanted to go see the hunt start off, but Mr. Poplington said it was
two or three miles distant, and out of our way, and that we'd better
move on as soon as possible so as to reach Chedcombe that night; but
he was glad, h