236 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



their pilot, because he pulled his horse to a 

 trot, well knowing the holding nature of the 

 ground to which they were coming. Then they 

 rush to their undoing, one hireling after another 

 flounders and staggers and rolls over, or recovers 

 itself to catch its shaken and surprised rider at 

 the critical moment. 



If the moor had only been left entirely 

 alone, its traps and pitfalls would be far less 

 numerous than they are, but every attempt at 

 husbandry, every stroke of the spade, has 

 made a snare for the horseman, each gutter 

 remains from year to year and from decade 

 to decade, while each peat cutting remains a 

 morass in which many horses might lie buried. 

 Many a glorious plain over which one might 

 gallop like the wind in drv weather, has been 

 made most dif^cult riding, seamed gridiron 

 fashion with countless gutters with unsound 

 sides, that never completely till up ; add to this 

 innumerable cart ruts sheltered by the heather 

 and the grass, and rocky paths with fixed and 

 rolling stones, and river fords that have their 

 moving boulders and slippery ledges ; add deep 

 tussocky heather and springheads overgrown 

 with floating grass and weed, and vou have a 

 country that is all right when vou know it, but 

 you have to know it hrst. 



One of the most awe inspiring parts of 

 Red Deer Land is that which borders on the 



