2i8 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



and Washford. Down through the dense green 

 shades of the oak woods hounds hunted slowly 

 on, and perhaps it was as well that they did 

 hunt slowly, for to ride to hounds amongst 

 these precipices takes time and circumspection, 

 and the staghounds are not so often in this 

 particular neighbourhood that their followers are 

 overlearned in its geography. For half an hour 

 at a time hounds were left perforce entirely 

 to themselves, but such old performers as Slow- 

 boy, Woodman and Pilot could well be trusted 

 to attend to the matter in hand. Picking out 

 the line piece by piece, the pack forged 

 steadily onward, traversing the steep incline of 

 the mineral railway and passing on from wood- 

 land glade to ferny slope till they came to the 

 commons at the head of Sticklepath Hill, Here 

 there was another check, but Anthony's per- 

 severance was not to be denied, and after some 

 pretty hunting over the furze and a little 

 slotting down a road, the pack swung away 

 over a turnip field to the higher end of Colton 

 Pits. Here in the larch plantations the deer 

 might well have lingered, but the line was still 

 cold and doubtful, and it was only by patient 

 work that it was carried on over some wide 

 commons and sterile fields to the head of 

 Elworthy Combe. 



Here, with the Quantock range facing the 

 Brendons across the Crowcombe vale, with the 



