RIDING AT STAG-HOUNDS. 209 



If Exrhoor were in Leicestershire, it would be called 

 a bog, and cursed accordingly, but every country has its 

 own peculiarities, and a North Devon sportsman more 

 especially, on a horse whose dam, or even grandam, was 

 bred on the moor, seems to flap his way across it with 

 as much confidence as a bittern or a curlew. Could 

 I discover how he accomplished this feat I would 

 tell you, but I can only advise you to ride his line and 

 follow him yard for yard. 



There are certain sound tracks and pathways, no 

 doubt, in which a horse does not sink more than fetlock 

 deep, and Mr. Knight, the lord of the soil, may be seen, 

 on a large handsome thorough-bred hunter, careering 

 away as close to the pack as he used to ride in the 

 Vale of Aylesbury, but for a stranger so to presume 

 would be madness, and if he did not find himself bogged 

 in half a minute, he would stop his horse in half a 

 mile. 



Choose a pilot then, Mr. Granville Somerset we will 

 say, or one of the gentlemen I have already named, and 

 stick to him religiously till the welcome heather is 

 brushing your stirrup-irons once more. On Brendon, 

 you may ride for yourself with perfect confidence in the 

 face of all beholders, bold and conspicuous as Dunkery 

 Beacon, but on Exmoor you need not be ashamed to- 



P 



