DEVON AND SOMERSET. 235 



highways and by-ways of the South Molton 

 country will send its participators home with 

 dusty hats and garments, a decided taste in 

 their mouths, and the clatter of innumerable 

 hoofs on macadam still ringing in their ears, as 

 they drop off into that sound slumber which is 

 seldom denied to a weary staghunter. 



Amongst pilots and their followers, like 

 follows like : he who is greedy for a gallop 

 selects some pilot who is well mounted like 

 himself, while paterfamilias, who is introducing 

 his daughters to the chase that he loved in his 

 youth, will point out some steady going resident, 

 who can be relied upon not to cover more 

 ground than is absolutely necessary, and to avoid 

 the traps and peat holes and the dangerous 

 going which is every here and there to be found, 

 and which come so unexpectedly in the line of 

 an average gallop. There are many who will 

 follow a pilot up to a certain point, but when 

 they see him stop or swerve without any 

 apparent reason, while hounds appear to them 

 to be running exactly as they did before, will 

 carry on at full speed and find themselves, to 

 their surprise, either in difficult ground, or 

 beneath the correcting lash of the master's 

 tongue. How often on the swampy plains of 

 Acmead, where the ponies graze knee-deep amid 

 the lush green moor grass, has one seen a string 

 of white garmented sportsmen suddenly forsake 



