DEVON AND SOMERSET. 175 



a moment at the Barle, but soon came on again, 

 and were plainly running for blood. We had 

 to scamper now at a far better pace to live with 

 them as they splashed through the Barle and 

 streamed up the Picked Stones Fields to the 

 White Water at Cow Castle, and so past the 

 ruined cottages made famous by Warden Page, 

 and so on up stream. Up and up, onwards 

 and onwards, with never a check or a doubt, 

 the great hounds pressed steadily on the hot 

 foil of their sinking quarry, and the end drew 

 near. From Ash Plantation the rooks fluttered 

 out at the unwonted sound, and a moment later 

 they mav well have been scared as the liunted 

 deer rose from his last soiling place in the 

 White Water stream and went on up the 

 marshv bottom jis if for Cloven Rocks amid a 

 chorus of view halloas. 



But now his course was run, hounds rapidly 

 overhauled him, and in the home pasture of 

 Winstitchen Farm they fairly bowled him over 

 in the open after three hours and a ciuarter of 

 steady hunting, of which the last three-quarters 

 of an hour had been the fastest part. 



Throughout the run hounds were only lifted 

 once, and there were only two checks, except 

 on first coming to the Sheardon Water, when 

 the deer had travelled the stream bed for a long 

 distance. Time from the lav on to the take, 

 three hours and a quarter ; twelve miles from 



