CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 183 



perhaps, imagination may reveal a ' whole poem of 

 memories,' as scenes long forgotten rise up again 

 before the mind's eye, and the wastes and bluffs of 

 the forest are peopled with companions long since 

 passed away, and friends who will never again be 

 met in ' the happy hunting grounds ' of this world. 



I propose to relate in this chapter a few incidents 

 and anecdotes connected with the sport, which may 

 amuse the general reader, while at the same time 

 they illustrate in some degree the subject in hand. 



The fondness of the deer for the water when 

 heated and fatigued has already been adverted to 

 more than once, and it will have been remarked 

 that a ' take ' in the sea or in a river is a common 

 occurrence. On more than one occasion, when the 

 deer has gone to sea, the prize has been appropri- 

 ated by those who had little or no title to it beyond 

 that which the good old rule sufficed to give — the 

 power to take, and keep it. 



An instance of this occurred years ago, when the 

 late Mr Lucas kept the hounds. The stag, after a 

 run of two hours and a half over the moor, went to 

 sea close to the Foreland, a point near Glenthorne, 

 the seat of Mr Halliday, known in former days as 

 Coscombe, or County's Coombe, the boundary 

 between Devon and Somerset, a noted place of 



