172 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



a deer. The field rarely consists oi more than a dozen 

 persons, frequently of less than half that number, but 

 these are all of the right sort, very much unlike the 

 hundreds that appear in the autumn. The following 

 account of a run that took place a year ago may give 

 the reader some notion of a day's hind-hunting. 



Time, 1 1 a.m. on the 9th of February. Place, " Two 

 Gates" on Brendon Common, that is to say at the 

 gate (formerly a double gate) in the fence that divides 

 the North Forest from Brendon Common, and the 

 county of Devon from the county of Somerset, on the 

 Queen's inhospitable highway between Simonsbath 

 and Lynton. Present, the master and another from 

 his quarters, Arthur Heal and seventeen couple of 

 hounds, the whip, two second horsemen, each riding 

 one horse and leading another, and the local shepherd. 

 Not a soul more seems to be coming, so as the wind 

 is blowing somewhat keenly from the west a move is 

 soon made to the shepherd's cottage in the "Doone" 

 Valley, as the most insignificant of the combes running 

 off the common has been since the last ten years re- 

 named. Here we meet the field, six in number, two 

 ladies from Glenthorne, two brothers from two dif- 

 ferent districts, both fourteen miles away, a veteran 

 who from love of deer-hunting forsook his native York- 



