DEVON AND SOMERSET. 317 



well pleased, sets off in pursuit of the racing 

 striving line on which all eyes are fixed. The 

 breeze rushes in the ears and sets the coat tails 

 flying, the huntsman's first cheer and the lively 

 twanging of his horn, are succeeded by the 

 fierce cry of the breathless hounds as they 

 plunge over the deep but yielding heather, 

 horses snort and blow, and their feet swish with 

 measured galloping tread as they stride over the 

 herbage and throw the miles behind them. 

 Then the hounds swerve and the master's warn- 

 ing voice is heard upbraiding some too forward 

 wing of the already warmed up field : then 

 Slowbov or Woodman, Founder or Dreamer 

 speaks to the foil again, and away go one and 

 all in the same long swishing gallop, that 

 continues all across the open moor, until some 

 enclosure or a Forest stream is reached and a 

 detour must perforce be made. Then there is 

 a clatter on the rolling stones, a rattle and a 

 scrape of iron on the rocks of the stream bed, 

 a wallowing plunge as the great hounds dash 

 through the shallow pools and race along the 

 stickles where the muddy stain of the lately 

 passed stag has hardly yet settled down or 

 washed away amongst the circling eddies. All 

 at once the hounds fling oft" upon the bank 

 where some side combe, quiet and bracken 

 bedded, and with a thorn bush or two or a 

 straggling beech fence running down its steep 



