THE CHASE OF THE STAG. 163 



or they will go there every time they are pursued. So 

 a boat has to be procured, the deer captured, blind- 

 folded, and taken to the shore, whether fit or unfit to 

 kill, to scare them from taking- to it again. Not un- 

 frequently the deer beat the boat ; sometimes they beat 

 the right boat and are captured by some Channel 

 craft. One deer so captured off Porlock was carried 

 alive to Appledore, where the Receiver of Wreck (!) de- 

 clined to allow her to be sent anywhere without the 

 permission of the master. Mr. Bisset thus recovered 

 her and turned her out once more. Hounds often 

 follow the deer a long distance out to sea, and on a 

 fine autumn day It Is a very pretty sight to see deer 

 and pack swimming in the blue water some hundred 

 feet below, little specks amid the glorious scenery of 

 cliff and sea and mountain. But it is a very doubtful 

 pleasure to wait in a westerly gale on a bitter January 

 day watching a hind till the boat, sent for from three 

 or four miles away, appears on the scene. Still less 

 pleasant is it to scramble up and down perpendicu- 

 lar cliffs, where hounds and even deer find them- 

 selves occasionally on ledges whence they cannot 

 move. Deer have frequently turned the cliffs to good 

 account, and made a practice of standing on the edge 

 of a precipice where men dared not let the hounds 



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