DEVON AND SOMERSET. 197 



The great stretch of Duredown with its waving 

 grass comes and passes, and from its crest one 

 can take a moment's view of the way hounds 

 are heading on Exe Plain. 



They fling over the swampy springheads of 

 the Exe and bend a Httle to the right. Down 

 to the Lynton road goes all the field, except a 

 lucky half dozen, Mr. Snow amongst them, who 

 make straight for Cheriton Ridge. Hounds 

 stream on past Blackpitts, and down the line 

 of the Farley Water, and driving still straight 

 against the breeze for four glorious miles, come 

 at last to covert at Sanctuary Wood. The pace 

 now slackens, and it is high time too. Half-a- 

 mile over the fields above Bridge Ball brings 

 them to the Combe Park Woods, which they 

 drive straight through just above Mr. J. Budd's 

 hunting box, crossing the Hoar Oak Water. It 

 is a trying climb for horses to the upland fields 

 of West Lvnn, but once up on the top the 

 breeze revives them again. 



Down over the fields go the hounds straight 

 to the summer-house, and one expects every 

 moment to hear them bay the stag on the edge 

 of this dizzy clift" which overhangs Lynmouth 

 by nearly nine hundred feet. The point so far 

 is almost sixteen miles from Whiterocks, and 

 hounds have run so straight that they have only 

 covered nineteen miles from Three Waters to 

 do it, but now instead of coming on a dead-beat 



