OF HUNTING A STAG. S3 



him, and though he made a rather cunning double at 

 the top end of Cornham Brake, and ran down the 

 little watercourse till he was clear of the covert 

 before he broke away for Dure Down, he did not get 

 three minutes' start, and from that point to the Cleeve 

 above Lynmouth it was a race the whole way. We 

 had a check here which must have lasted five-and- 

 twenty minutes, and had to hunt the water for some 

 way up from Waters' Meet and lead our weary horses 

 up a heart-breaking path to Countisbury Common, 

 and even then the stag was reported only about ten 

 minutes ahead of us, so that he must have taken 

 matters very easily in the Lyn Valley. From Coun- 

 tisbury he ran the cliff path to Glenthorne, where he 

 was killed, only nine horses being at the finish. 



In riding to staghounds on Exmoor, or in any of 

 the wild country round, it is impossible for anyone to 

 keep as close to hounds when they run fast as he 

 would wish to do ; but it is still necessary to keep 

 command of hounds, and be ready to get to them in 

 an instant. Sidne) Tucker, the present huntsman, 

 a light weight, a bold horseman, and with an 

 unequalled knowledge of the ground, seems to be 

 able to go almost everywhere his hounds can go, a 

 feat not lightly to be attempted by the uninitiated, 

 and yet all the while he is looking ahead for what is 

 his chief source of difficulty — fresh deer. So long 

 as the pack are running well over the open it is all 

 plain sailing ; but there are favourite haunts of the 

 deer, and one or other of these a hunted stag rarely 



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