288 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



flame within ten minutes of the appointed hour 

 of ten o'clock. Dunkery beacon was ready 

 with its pile of duly prepared combus- 

 tibles, and a steady southerly breeze drove 

 great pillars of smoke and flame outwards 

 towards the Severn sea, while some two 

 hundred loyal folks joined hands in a gigantic 

 ring round the burning bonfire and sang the 

 National Anthem with great enthusiasm. 



On the northern end of Dartmoor, and away 

 across North Devon to the Isle of Lundy, a 

 brooding cloud hid the beacon lights that 

 should have shown full plainly from Dunkery's 

 lofty top, but on all the rest of the wide circle 

 of horizon, from whicli the daylight had only 

 just departed, there were abundant fires to be 

 noted and the locality of each assigned. Not 

 only did the beacons of gallant little Wales 

 seem to shine brightest, which may have been 

 partly owing to the air being purer in that 

 direction, but their number was actually larger 

 in proportion to the area than of those to be 

 seen on English soil, of which an immense 

 extent |Was visible in the soft hazy twilight, 

 from Mendip to Sidmouth Gap, and from 

 Wincanton to Castle Hill. Opposite the 

 Quantock range where deer go to sea, the tide 

 is w^ont to go far out across the muddy flats, 

 and the stag must trot far in shallow water 

 before he can find depth enough to swim away 



