68 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



honour. To the esteem wherein he was held by the 

 county his statue at Exeter sufficiently testifies, but 

 the full share of gratitude due to him for the restora- 

 tion of stag-hunting is hardly as a rule accorded 

 to him. " He was," in Mr. Bisset's words, *' a most 

 staunch and uncompromising preserver of the deer, and 

 though he took no part in the hunting, and but little 

 in any kind of sport, yet he took pride in having plenty 

 of deer and black game for the amusement of his neigh- 

 bours, and was delighted to hear that more deer had 

 been killed from his covers than from those of any 

 other landowner." 



About this time, too, two lesser lights also disap- 

 peared. Jim Blackmore, the old harbourer, had died 

 in September, 1868, and at the end of 1870 John 

 Babbage, the huntsman, resigned his horn to Arthur 

 Heal. The old man had had a severe fall in 1864 

 from which he never quite recovered, but, still game 

 to the last, could hardly be persuaded to make way for 

 a younger man. He lived for more than ten years 

 after this, and was sometimes to be seen at the cover 

 side, as keen a sportsman as ever. He was a good 

 honest servant of the old stamp, devoted to his master 

 (as indeed all Mr. Bisset's servants were), and much 

 valued by him. As a huntsman he was perhaps hardly 



