THE WILD STAG OK EXMOOR. 225 



grew rapidly. All round the deep glen, whose fish-hook out- 

 line could not have been less than half a dozen miles, were 

 dotted little parties, some in hopes of being near the spot 

 where the deer should break, but most of them intent upon 

 enjoying their picnic apart from the crowd. 



Meantime the body of the hounds were shut up in the farm 

 stables, whilst Arthur, the huntsman, and George, his whip, 

 worked the covert with four or five couple of trusted " tufters." 

 For those whose experience of hunting the wild stag, as here 

 carried out, is even less than that of your humble servant, it 

 should be explained that these tufters are not, as might be 

 imagined, anything distinct from the other hounds employed. 

 They are merely staunch and steady members of the pack, 

 experienced in drawing for their game and obedient to voice 

 and horn. Their business is to drive the deer from covert, to 

 submit to being stopped when reaching the open — when, should 

 the quarry be a hind, they are taken back to draw again ; 

 should he be deemed a huntable stag they are kept back till 

 the rest of the pack are brought, and laid on to the line. It 

 will be remembered that towards the end of last season 

 Mr. Bisset had the great misfortune to lose half his kennel 

 from rabies, brought about, it is said, by the extraordinary 

 foolishness of a countryman, who actually shut up two stray 

 hounds in an outhouse ivith a mad dog and a dead sheep — 

 turning them loose the next morning after a night spent in 

 a triangular duel over the carcase ! When the horrid scourge 

 developed itself, all hounds open to the slightest suspicion of 

 infection were at once destroyed ; and the remainder having 

 since been kept, each in his separate kennel, without any 

 further symptom of contagion, it is confidently hoped that all 

 danger of infection is now passed. Still, it has not been deemed 

 advisable as yet to incorporate them with the new material, 

 collected from various kennels to meet the deficiency. Naturally 

 these new comers, mostly from foxhound kennels and mostly 

 unentered to anything, are likely to show themselves green to 

 the game (if I may use the expression) till blood has whetted 



Q 



