2i6 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



hounds on Exmoor. It was a memorable season, for 

 our Master was a candidate for the Parliament which 

 assembled on April 29, 1880, and his opponent was 

 Mr. C. T. D. Acland, son of Sir Thomas Acland, who 

 owned about twenty thousand acres of Exmoor, in- 

 cluding the historic Dunkery Beacon and Cloutsam 

 Ball, and whose family had been associated with 

 Exmoor stag-hunting for over two centuries. 



The earliest Master of Staghounds in the Exmoor 

 country of whom I can find any authentic record was 

 Hugh Pollard, Esquire, ranger of Queen Elizabeth for 

 the Royal Forest of Exmoor in 1598, when he kept a 

 pack of hounds at Simonsbath. From that period 

 until about 1700 the Rangers of Exmoor Forest kept 

 hounds ; nor was it till 1775 that the hounds were kept 

 by Colonel Bassett, of Watermouth, the first Master, 

 who was neither a grantee of the Forest of Exmoor 

 nor ranger ; nor was it till 1802 that the pack became 

 a subscription pack under the management of Mr. 

 Worth, of Worth House, near Tiverton, Devon. In 

 181 1 Lord Graves, of Bishop's Court, near Exeter, 

 assumed command, only to be succeeded by Lord 

 Fortescue in 1812, under whose rule the Rev. John 

 Russell was initiated into the mysterious charms of 

 stag-hunting. Lord Fortescue was the ideal Master of 

 Hounds at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 

 and many stories are told of the wassail, which rang 

 merrily in the halls of Castle Hill, w^hen it was the 

 custom for James Tout, the huntsman, to enter the 

 dining-room at Castle Hill after dinner in full costume, 

 with his horn in his hand, and after he had sounded a 



