STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR 235 



autumn tints, and lacking too the stir and move- 

 ment of the chase. Then the blood boils in veins 

 of horse and man, then a fierce energy urges on 

 the pursuers. What can compare with it, but 

 the wild charge of cavalry ? The occasion past, 

 however, our pulse resumes its normal beat, and 

 presently in slumber the scene and all its glories 

 fade away. But not the memory fades ! Year 

 by year while trouble, sickness, hopes and long- 

 ings get blotted from our recollection, the printed 

 page or glance at whip and spur, shall revive 

 with more than pristine splendour, the memory of 

 the chase. 



And what of the stag ? Well, the stag's life 

 is not, I fear, a happy one ; for him no sooner 

 is one trouble past than another is upon him. 

 During the summer his horns are growing and 

 keep him in constant irritation and anxiety. The 

 velvet is hardly lost when the fever of the rut- 

 ting season consumes him. Then there is the hard 

 winter to live through, and with the return of 

 spring returns also the period for the shedding of 

 old horns, and sprouting of new ones. Indeed, it 

 is only for a few weeks in every year that the stag 

 is his perfect self, and those weeks, with a small 

 margin before and after, constitute what is called 

 the stag-hunting season, a season of relief to the 



