THE WILD STAG ON EXMOOR. 227 



and a murmur of expectation culminated in a burst of excite- 

 ment, as the huntsman issued from the thicket his horn to 

 his lips, and most of the tufters at his heels. The whip had, by 

 some marvellous perception, found himself in a position to 

 intercept hounds as they left covert on a scent, where a deer 

 (stag, or hind, he did not know) had stolen away behind the 

 farmhouse. The news was quickly in Arthur's hands ; and now 

 he was on his way to fetch the pack to the line. All was in 

 a moment bustle, hurry, and anxiety. Hounds dashed noisily 

 out, rnad with excitement and long restraint. Horsemen 

 hurried up from every side their excitement none the weaker 

 that it had been aggravated by other causes rather than long 

 restraint. Up a narrow lane went the exuberant pack. 

 Crowding in its wake came the no less boisterous crowd 

 freedom of action, and freedom of diction, its peremptory and 

 strongly enforced tenets. Half an hour perhaps more had 

 the deer been gone; but lapse of time would appear (from 

 all one hears) to have a bearing upon the scent of a deer on 

 heather altogether inferior to its influence upon that of a fox 

 on plough or grass. Minutes are of no consequence : and a 

 quarter of an hour, more or less, need not be taken into 

 consideration. If the deer is accustomed to take full advantage 

 of this theory, here is possibly the explanation of the enormous 

 length of some of the runs on record. 



Mr. Russell (wiry, keen, and almost youthful in his eighty- 

 third year) rode twent} r -five miles to Cloutsham, and took back 

 with him Col. Thomson, who had run down from London for a 

 single day of novelty (the which at least he must have found) 

 before setting off to his cub hunting in Fifeshire. 



At 12.15 the stag had broken covert. At 1 P.M., hounds were 

 laid on the line. Mark this, fellow foxhunters ; and frame your 

 conclusions anent the scent of the deer ! No carted " hass " this 

 (as the enthusiast of immortal memory termed the half-tamed 

 animal) ! no tricks of aniseeded hoof here ! But a genuine 

 monarch of the glen his feet tainted by nothing more artificial 

 than the heather and the fern. And yet, with five-and-forty 



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