That night we stopped in the little village of Simonsbath at Somebody’s Arms.  After dinner Mr. Poplington, who knew some people in the place, went out, but Jone and me went to bed as quick as we could, for we was tired.  The next morning we was wakened by a tremendous pounding at the door.  I didn’t know what to make of it, for it was too early and too loud for hot water, but we heard Mr. Poplington calling to us, and Jone jumped up to see what he wanted.

“Get up,” said he, “if you want to see a sight that you never saw before.  We’ll start off immediately and breakfast at Exford.”  The hope of seeing a sight was enough to make me bounce at any time, and I never dressed or packed a bag quicker than I did that morning, and Jone wasn’t far behind me.

When we got down-stairs we found our cycles waiting ready at the door, together with the stable man and the stable boy and the boy’s helper and the cook and the chambermaid and the waiters and the other servants, waiting for their tips.  Mr. Poplington seemed in a fine humor, and he told us he had heard the night before that there was to be a stag hunt that day, the first of the season.  In fact, it was not one of the regular meets, but what they called 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