RIDING AT STAG-HOUNDS 



ignominiously termed, is limited to three packs — 

 Mr. Bissett's, who hunts the perfectly wild animal 

 over the moorlands of Somerset and North Devon ; 

 Baron Rothschild's, in the Vale of Aylesbury ; and 

 Lord Wolverton's blood - hounds, amongst the 

 combes of Dorsetshire and "doubles" of the 

 Blackmoor Vale. With Her Majesty's hounds I 

 have not been out more than three or four times 

 in my life. 



Let us take the noble chase of the West 

 country first, as it is followed in glorious autumn 

 weather through the fairest scenes that ever 

 haunted a painter's dream ; in Horner woods and 

 Cloutsham Ball, over the grassy slopes of Exmoor, 

 and across the broad expanse of Brendon, spread- 

 ing its rich mantle of purple under skies of gold. 

 We could dwell for pages on the associations 

 connected with such classical names as Badge- 

 worthy-water, New-Invention, Mountsey Gate, or 

 wooded Glenthorne, rearing its garlanded brows 

 above the Severn sea. But we are now concerned 

 in the practical question, how to keep a place with 

 Mr. Bissett's six-and-twenty-inch hounds running 

 a warrantable deer over the finest scenting country 

 in the world ? 



You may ride at them as like a tailor as you 

 please. The ups and downs of a Devonshire 

 combe will soon put you in your right place, and 

 you will be grateful for the most trifling hint that 



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