DEVON AND SOMERSET. iii 



lines were sufficiently divergent to enable Mr. 

 Locke, acting as master in the absence of Mr. 

 Basset, to lay on the pack at 12.25 ^" ^^^^ North 

 Hawkwell fields after duly stopping the tufters. 

 Hot and dusty was the advance down the 

 Dunster Road from Wheddon Cross, where 

 hounds had been kennelled, and across the 

 deep combe in which the Aville water trickles 

 from pool to pool, and hotter still the climb up 

 the stonv lane above North Hawkwell to see 

 hounds laid on. At a rack in the first fence 

 above North Hawkwell Wood, they own it with 

 a whimper and begin to scramble through the 

 brush. Capt. Warre espies an obscure gate in 

 an adjacent corner, and the field soon slip 

 through, though a resounding thump and a 

 smothered execration or two in the crowd tell 

 that one horse at least is making free with his 

 heels. Over the sun-baked fields towards Hill 

 Barn hounds run but slowly, being once or 

 twice at fault, and at Spangate a check of some 

 minutes occurs. In Annicombe is a soiling pit 

 much frequented by the deer, and in this the 

 stag had been seen to lie for a while, ere he 

 made off towards Luccombe. From this point 

 hounds take it up with more eagerness, and 

 soon traverse the stony side of Dunkery, over 

 Brockwell and Huntscott and sink into Luc- 

 combe Allers, and Anthony's difficulties begin. 

 First of all, a great ruddy hind starts out of 



