232 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



lock Weir (Garner's, if I mistake not) ; and the tufters were 

 quickly busy, while the field, as usual, mostly congregated on 

 the brow above. Soon a two-year-old hart made his way up 

 from the wood. But lie was not game enough : the tufters 

 were whipped off, and the search resumed. Likely enough, the 

 youngster had been pushed out, as a substitute, by the, cunning 

 veteran who was still hid below. An old stag — with all the 

 experience of several summers, and possessing, as he does, the 

 same keen sense of scent as his followers — will frequently, I am 

 told, drive out every hind in covert, or rouse up a young stag 

 and crouch in his lair (letting hounds pass right over him) 

 rather than run for his life till actually obliged. And thus it is, 

 that the expedient of separating and forcing him out, by means 

 of a few steady tufters has to be resorted to, though he may be 

 harboured in his lair to the very bush. 



Almost from the same spot where they were in pursuit before, 

 the tufters were again on a line ; and in a few minutes a trusty 

 "tally" from the middle wood proclaimed that this time a 

 warrantable stag was afoot. Pushed along the covert bordering 

 the cliff, he made his appearance outside the wood a mile away, 

 as was telegraphed by watching footpeople. It was impossible 

 to know if he had gone or not ; but, crediting him at least with 

 good intention, Arthur spurred for the pack and laid them on 

 to his line. Out upon the moor for thirty minutes' galloping. 

 Down again into the woods they drooped, running hard 

 while, along overhung paths and deep cut lanes, the field 

 struggled in a parallel string close above. Two miles of this 

 work, with little to guide us except the influence of example, 

 and we emerge on to a grassy knoll with the sea almost sheer 

 below. What is that boat, pulling hard after a brown speck in 

 the still water — two other boats racing up at an angle ? To the 

 new comer they represent nothing ; but much to the experienced 

 eyes of the sporting yeoman who have guided us hither. The 

 stag has taken to the sea — little thinking, as he dares his pur- 

 suers to a swim, how fatally handicapped is he, nor counting on 

 the fell allies which boat and oar bring to the only enemies he 



