S6 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



sinking themselves to the chin in the ice-cold 

 stream while the hounds quest doubtingly up 

 or down each bank. At such a spot the hunts- 

 man will naturally cast an enquiring eye, but 

 sometimes the shelter is good enough to 

 completely hide the hunted animal, and it is 

 only by accident that she is seen to leave her 

 lair long after the chase has moved away, and 

 she is safe till the next hunting day. 



In the Horner Woods there are always sheep 

 to be seen picking a precarious livelihood from 

 the steep hillsides, leaving their wool on briar 

 and black thorn and occasionally in the treach- 

 ■erous days of spring giving up altogether the 

 difBcult struggle for life. The Ouantock Hills 

 seem to be the place where sheep have most 

 difficulty in picking up a livelihood, and here, 

 too, even the ponies occasionally succumb at the 

 end of a hard winter. 



The scene at the hnish of a good hind 

 hunting run, if it terminates early enough in 

 the day for the mid-winter afternoon sun to 

 illumine the scene, is far more suitable for the 

 painter's brush than the end of a day in the 

 fashionable season. Not that the hind figures 

 much in the scene, for she has no antlers with 

 which to tight, and her end is swift and sudden, 

 but the grouping of hounds and horses, and the 

 ■ mere handful of human beings dragging the 

 hind from the water and assisting in the final 



