CLOUTSHAM. 327 



" Good Heavens, you are not going to try to draw 

 that ! " was the exclamation of an up-country 

 sportsman who had not grasped the mysteries of 

 harbouring and tufting, and, indeed, the task looks 

 well-nigh hopeless, for the thick covert extends 

 literally for miles. Yet it is drawn by tufters when a 

 stag has been properly harboured, and with success, 

 and stags are forced to face the open and fly for 

 their lives over the moor when there is a good scent ; 

 when there is none the huntsman's task is sometimes 

 almost a hopeless one. 



Cloutsham Ball, behind which, in a fold of the 

 ground, stands the old farmhouse, is the apex of a 

 tableland forming the space between the two arms 

 of the letter Y. The stem, which debouches on the 

 Porlock Vale, and the left arm are the Horner, the 

 combe on the right is the Eastwater, and the 

 junction is Eastwater Foot. On the right, as one 

 looks down the valley, is the great ridge of Dunkery, 

 which sweeps up in a huge expanse of purple heather 

 broken by the narrow combes, Aldercombe and 

 Hollowcombe, to a height of over seventeen hundred 

 feet. On the left is the rounder summit of Lee Hill^ 

 separating Horner from Hawkcombe. Behind the 

 moor rises in fold after fold of heather to the high 

 ground by Alderman's Barrow, and behind that again 

 the wide waste expanse of Exmoor. It is over this 

 line that all want the stag to go. 



While the crowd is assembling one may take a look 

 at the old farmhouse. It stands on steeply sloping 



