94 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



leave it, and depart to safer and more secure shades. 

 Suffice it now to say, the stag harboured by Jem is 

 found by the tuftcrs. They are stopped after they 

 have driven the deer well away from covert. View- 

 halloo after view-halloo proclaim that it is the 

 'warrantable deer,' this time, which has been roused 

 and has gone away.^ The pack is brought up and 

 laid on, and as they toss their heads and fling their 

 sterns, when they catch the scent, and dash away 

 across the moor, I see the man to whorn we are 

 mainly indebted for this auspicious commencement 

 of a day's sport, standing in the centre of a crowd of 

 admiring rustics, the big tears of excitement and joy 

 coursing one another down his furrowed cheek, as 

 he swears in good Somerset that ' if it ar'nt as vine 

 a stag as ever he zeed, he ar'nt no zinner.' 



I may here state that in former days, when ihe 

 fixture was at a considerable distance from a place 

 in which the hounds would be confined during the 

 operation of tufting, the pack were taken to the 



* ' By the gate and goyng of an harte the huntsman may know if he 

 be great, and whether he will stand long up before his houndes or not ; 

 for all hartes which have a long steppe or pace will longer stand up than 

 they which have a short steppe, and also they are swifter, lighter, and 

 better breathed ; also the harte which leaveth a greate slotte with his 

 forefeet doth never stand long up when he is chased. By those tokens 

 the huntsman may know the force of the harte, and take the advant- 

 age for his houndes.' — Art of Veiicric, p. 67. 



