68 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



close together is the most exhausting form of covert 

 hounds have to face, as anyone will readily realise if 

 he tries to ride a horse through it when up level with 

 one's knees. 



What a contrast this quicker style of tufting is to 

 the fashion of old days, the Rev. H. W. Thornton in 

 his entertaining book, " Reminiscences of an old 

 West Country Parson," shows, where he gives an 

 account of a staghunt at Cloutsham in 1848. Captain 

 West was Master, and found two stags in the edge 

 of Sweet Tree, one of which went straight to Lang- 

 combe Head. The huntsman let the tufters go, and 

 came back for the pack, when all the riders galloped 

 up the Exford Road exactly as we do to-day till the 

 pack came, not to where the tufters were stopped, 

 but to where hounds hit the line over the road. Mr. 

 Thornton was riding a four-year-old pony full of 

 grass, which could not gallop, and got left behind ; 

 but, as he naively remarks, this did not really matter 

 as they were all far ahead of the tufters^ which 

 were old and slow, but eventually overtook him 

 and piloted him slowly and sedately to Brendon, 

 where they found the stag had been killed and all 

 was over. 



Take an instance of the other kind. On Sep- 

 tember 14th, 1899, we met at Hawkridge. Some- 

 where not far short of a score of stags, three, four, 

 and five year old deer, were lying in Whiterocks, a 

 patch of oak scrub about half a mile long on the far 

 side of the combe down which runs the Danesbrook. 



