136 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



point of that story is appreciated. Dull care is left 

 behind, the whole heart is given up to gaiety and 

 enjoyment, as we wend our way in Indian file 

 through the pleasant shady lanes, or deploy into 

 line as we come upon the smooth sward of the 

 downs which lie between us and the moor. Here 

 we are upon the border of that waste, and, alas ! 

 the clouds which obscured the]]early beams of the 

 sun this morning seem to have gathered round the 

 proud crest of Dunkerry, and bode no good to 

 those who hope to see a chase from one end of 

 Exmoor to the other. Still we go onward. We 

 watch the whirling, eddying clouds of the mist, 

 sometimes falling like a fleece upon the hill-top, 

 sometimes wafted away and careering wildly over 

 the Channel, to be lost among the Welsh hills. 

 There is half-an-hour of suspense, not enlivened or 

 cheered by a true tale which one of the party 

 relates, how, at the close of the last century, the 

 hounds were, during one whole fortnight of the 

 stag-hunting season, in two successive years, pre- 

 vented from hunting by the dense fogs which 

 prevailed throughout the country. We ride on 

 over the shoulders of the hia^hest summit of the 

 moor, doubting, yet hoping, when, in an instant, as 

 if by magic, a wind springs up, the veil lifts, the 



