iSyi— i88i. 85 



conduct the whole performance ? " But he ends, 

 nevertheless, by attributing the success mainly to 

 the weather. It is significant that the word " I " 

 never once occurs in the thirteen volumes of the 

 journal. 



Physically Mr. Bisset was little short of a giant, 

 considerably over six feet high, broad and large limbed 

 in proportion. It seemed a marvel to many that he 

 could ever have found horses to carry him over Ex- 

 moor, but for all his twenty stone he rode, during the 

 earlier years of his mastership, as hard as any one. 

 But the price of one of his horses would probably have 

 purchased the best half-dozen ridden by his field. 

 Whatever the advantages, however, that he lost through 

 his great weight, he made them up by his extraordi- 

 nary knowledge of the country, the deer, and the sport. 

 Without question he understood wild -deer hunting 

 better than any one else, and but for his weight might 

 have been the best huntsman ever known on Exmoor. 

 He had a marvellously quick eye for a deer, and could 

 tell almost unerringly, even at a distance, whether a 

 deer was male or female, fit or not to be run, fresh or 

 beaten — no very easy matter, whatever the inexpe- 

 rienced may think. There are not more than half-a- 

 dozen men whose word, whatever their good will, may 



