TROUBLOUS TIMES. 299 



he overcame to a great extent by finding the money 

 himself, but it was many years before it could be said 

 that he had the cordial assistance of the owners of 

 land, though his innate kindliness, disguised under a 

 somewhat cold and distant manner, had soon won 

 over the farmers to his side. 



In his first season, though hounds were out 

 twenty-five days, only two stags and two hinds were 

 killed ; in his next year only one stag was killed, four 

 hinds, and two male deer. Even after ten years of 

 mastership, with such able assistants as Jack 

 Babbage and Arthur Heal, only three stags, four 

 hinds, and three other deer were killed. In 1861 

 Mr. Bisset's tenure of Pixton Park came to an end, 

 and but for the public-spirited conduct of Mr, Froude 

 Bellew, who turned out of his house at Rhyll himself, 

 and also gave up his kennels, Mr. Bisset's Mastership 

 would inevitably have come prematurely to an end. 

 In that year the pack, which had been kept at Jury 

 Kennels, were moved to Rhyll, where they remained 

 until they came to Exford in 1876. 



In 1865 Mr. Bisset, who had taken much pains to 

 establish a herd of deer on the Ouantock Hills, 

 killed his first stag there. Little by little the number 

 of deer in the country increased ; public opinion, 

 which had been, if anything, against the hounds, had 

 veered round, and now was strongly in their favour ; 

 but the financial question was still a serious one. 



The district is a sparsely populated and a poor 

 one ; the resident landowners were, and are now, few 



