Chapter XIII 



A Hundred Years Ago — Unostentatious Meets — The Rev. Wyer Honey — 

 The Marland Harriers — One Thousand a Day — Sporting Management — 

 The Vicar's Gardener — Typical Devonshire Farmer — Distemper in the Ken- 

 nels — Mrs. Honey to the Rescue — Whisky and Milk — Exercising on Bicycles 

 — Occasional Grief — A Terrier Runs with the Pack — The Terrier and the Baby 

 — Was it an Adder ? — The Duke of Beaufort's Horses — The Huntsman's 

 Nightmare Realised — A Hare out at Sea — The Hounds have a Swim — An 

 Uncommon Hiding-place — Horse-clipping with Scissors — Dragged by a Dog 

 — Tea-Parties and Tittle-Tattle — Hard Clerical Work — Horse and Rider Turn 

 a Somersault — Refusing to Part Math Boots — A Poor Shot — " Bhnk Bonny " 

 Defeated — Drunken Men in Church — The Vicar Deals with them — A Patient 

 in a Vegetable Cart — Volunteers for the Front. 



IT is said that a liundred years ago all the parsons in North 

 Devon hunted more or less regularly. I daresay it is 

 true, and it is certainly still a remarkable county in that 

 respect, as will be seen by reckoning up the number of sport- 

 ing parsons who hail from Devonshire that appear in this 

 book. 



Devonshire, like the lake-country and Ireland, is the home 

 of the unostentatious hunt. Hidden away in the hills of those 

 wild countries are little packs, the very names of which are 

 hardly known to the outside world. Strangers are seldom seen 

 out with them, for their territories are always too rough to 

 attract visitors, and they exist solely for the enjoyment of the 

 sporting folk of the locality. 



It is with the doings of one of these interesting little packs, 

 the Marland harriers, that the name of the Rev. R. Wyer 

 Honey is associated, for he restarted the pack in 1910 and 

 hunted them until the great war necessitated their dissolution 

 not long ago. 



Mr. Honey was born at Raithby rectory, Louth, Lincoln- 

 shire, in 1871, where his father, the Rev. Doctor Wyer 

 Honey, was rector. Dr. Honey was not a sportsman, and while 

 he did not actively oppose his son's sporting proclivities, he did 

 nothing to encourage them, so that it was lucky for the boy that 



