CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER ii 



first presented themselves, unbidden, but welcome, 

 o-uests ; and when neither house nor stable would 

 hold other guest or steed for the night, still the 

 late-comer found hospitable welcome at the board, 

 and sought his couch in the homely village inn, 

 to dream over the merry evening passed, and 

 anticipate the incidents of the approaching hunting 

 morn. 



There are still at Killerton, near Exeter, the 

 seat of the present Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, a 

 china punch bowl and glasses, which long graced the 

 sideboard at Highercombe, where for many years 

 in the late baronet's time the hounds were kennelled. 

 Many a libation has been poured from that bowl, 

 and quaffed from those glasses in honour of ' stag- 

 huntino-.' The bowl was brou^rht from China by 

 the late Mr Acland of Litdebray, and tradition says, 

 that the clay from which it was manufactured 

 (together with a rough sketch of the subject to 

 be depicted upon it), was taken from England by 

 Mr Acland, to be fashioned by the cunning work- 

 men of the Celestial Empire. At the christening 

 of the present baronet, the bowl was many a time 

 and oft filled and emptied to the health of the 

 child. The wish then expressed, that he might 

 grow up as fond of stag-hunting as his ancestors. 



