STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR 229 



day unless a warrantable stag be found. Our 

 " harboured " stag had evidently wandered on. 



Let us leave the field to indulge in that gossip 

 for which Devonians are famous, and follow at a 

 respectful distance the tufters now moving across 

 Cloutsham Ball to Ten Acre Cleeve. We of course 

 find it necessary almost immediately to negotiate a 

 combe, that is, to descend the sides of one of those 

 deep ravines with which Exmoor abounds. We 

 yield the reins and see our horse's head disappear 

 between our knees, his croup rises to our neck, and 

 so we slip, shuffle, and slide down the precipitous 

 pathway. In the bottom of the combe, we meet 

 the tufters returning ; they have roused their stag, 

 and now rejoin the pack. Jogging forward, we see 

 a noble beast of chase, large as an eastern donkey, 

 the antlered monarch of Exmoor, trotting in a 

 leisurely way, and evidently making for Holm Wood. 



Jumping the fence into the fields by Bucket Hole, 

 our stag has met a woman and two children, who 

 flourished a pink apron at him, so he has turned 

 back, showing how easily sometimes a stag may be 

 headed if he has formed no definite plan as to where 

 he will go ; within five minutes we were to see how 

 hopeless a task it is to head a stag when he is 

 determined to make his point. Crossing the combe 

 towards us, the stag came up to the edge of the 

 I Q 



