/IDasters of tbe H)e\^on an^ Somerset 44.3 



next season he hunted thirty days and killed seven deer, 

 but two of these were ' unwarrantable ' and the slaying of 

 them was, therefore, a discredit to the Master's sportsman- 

 ship. The third season was distinctly reassuring, for 

 they took eight stags, had many brilliant runs and only 

 three blank days out of the thirty-three they hunted. 



1858 established a record in the shape of a glorious 

 run of twenty-two miles as the crow flies, in two hours 

 and twenty minutes, without a check, and the sport 

 was otherwise better than it had yet been. But the 

 poachers still plied their nefarious game so actively 

 and audaciously that deer were hard to find. Never- 

 theless Mr Bisset persevered with that dogged English 

 obstinacy which refuses to recognise defeat. 



In 1859 affairs arrived at a crisis that seemed to 

 foreshadow the collapse of the sport which for four years, 

 in the face of extraordinary difficulties, Mr Bisset had 

 so gallantly striven to establish. There were no funds 

 forthcoming, the Master's tenancy of Pixton expired, and 

 he announced his intention of leaving the country and 

 giving up the hounds. But Mr Froude Bellew and the 

 Honourable Mark Rolle came to the rescue with hand- 

 some donations and the promise of liberal annual 

 subscriptions ; other landowners followed suit, Mr Bisset 

 found fresh quarters at Exford, and the season of 1859, 

 which had opened so gloomily, ended with the brightest 

 of prospects. 



From that day difficulties vanished, and a golden era 

 set in for the Devon and Somerset. To show how 

 marked was the change which came over the fortunes of 

 the Hunt, I need only contrast the records of sport in 1870 

 with that in the early days of Mr Bisset's Mastership. 

 In that year they took, in thirty-six hunting-days. 



