^'OUR OPENING DAY" 105 



So I felt on this occasion as I jogged quietly on to the 

 meet. My way lay across the Moor itself, first past 

 a great beetling tor, looking in the distance like a 

 castle, and then through a number of circles of stone, 

 marking the sight of a prehistoric village. Then 

 across a broad and rather boggy valley, past a remote 

 farm, and I arrive at the place where the day's sport 

 will begin. Most of the field — a small one — are 

 already assembled. For these hounds the attendance 

 is a large one ; and there may be fifty horsemen and 

 ponymen out, and half a dozen carriages. These 

 latter cannot expect to see much, for the road they 

 are on ends at the farm where we are. There is not 

 much orthodox hunting dress, for the proud Devonian 

 generally hunts in the same costume as that in 

 which he farms, and considers he has made a con- 

 siderable concession to Diana if he substitutes boots 

 for his everyday leggings. The fair sex is conspicuous 

 by its absence, except in the carriages. 



Not much time is cut to waste, but we have a long 

 draw — on the open moor — in the course of which a 

 couple of hours are passed, not unpleasantly, in riding 

 about the country. 



At last, as the Master and his hounds are making 

 their way up a deepish valley through which a brook 

 babbles, a hat is held up by one of the field on the 

 right edge of the combe. Hounds are soon on the 

 line, and commence to run with a drive that shows 

 that the heather at least will carry a rare scent to- 

 day. We have to shove our horses along to live with 

 them, but at the end of a mile or so of fairly level 

 going they swing down inside a big wall, cross a 

 road and traverse the very scene of our meet, now 

 silent and abandoned. The fox has crossed, or run 



