CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 171 



hounds up to the finish ; let him ponder for a 

 moment over the animal's strength, courage, bottom, 

 speed, and endurance, and he will not be sur- 

 prised that their merits have been discovered and 

 appreciated. 



The visitor who may feel inclined to v/itness a run, 

 may find shelter for himself and his steeds in most of 

 the small towns and villages upon and around the 

 moor. At many of the places he will find not only 

 shelter, but comfort, and on non-hunting days may, if 

 he be a lover of the gentle art of fishing, pass his time 

 pleasantly among the hills, by the river side, and 

 return at evening with a creel well filled with scaly 

 spoil. The sportsman who makes the lovely village 

 of Lynmouth his abode, or resorts to the breezy 

 heights of Linton, will rarely have to take a solitary 

 ride to or from the hunting-field. A pink or two 

 may generally be seen glancing, at early morn, along 

 the road to ' Waters Meet,' or careerino- over the 

 wilds of Countisbury, when the fixture is in the 

 Porlock country. Come he whence he may, the 

 visitor in search of sport will not long feel himself a 

 stranger among us ; and even a first-fiight Melton 

 man may be rewarded for a pilgrimage to the West, 

 by seeing a run which, however unlike what he is 

 used to in his much-vaunted 'shire,' can hardly fail 



