that 2,000l. The ladies had left the room. said :

Sir Lionel rose and

'Gentlemen, I did not wish to talk business before the ladies; 'I trust that you will each explain to them how matters stand. I know that Colonel Hawkins will pay me the bet, let it cost what ' it will, but I am sure he cannot afford it; so before leaving London 'I I made arrangements with Messrs., the well-known bankers, ' that he should, without being able to guess where the money came from, find placed to his credit, at a date four or five weeks back, any amount that I should telegraph to them. This morning the bankers in question were requested by me to credit him with '2,000l. The date will put him off the scent. The bankers will assist in the operation. He will find that, with a larger amount ' in his pass-book than he expected, he can send me a cheque for our bet, and he is sure to send it. The next time we meet he 'will not be in a hurry to bully me with chaff. If, after my ' warning, any of you have bet against me, all I can say is, " Ver "dict, Serve you right," and there will have been more than one 'September 1874 "Sell.""

Roars of laughter and applause greeted the speech. In common with many others I look forward with much pleasure to September, 1875, which, alas! will have come to an end before this story is in public circulation.

ON CLOUTSHAM BALL.

A GREAT brown hill behind us reaching in gentle slopes to the old cairn on its summit, which stands out in bold relief against the sky line. Between us and it miles of heather rising sweep after sweep as waves on the ocean; here bright and purple, there dark and sombre, throwing a weird tint on coombe and hollow in the mountainside. Before us a perfect panorama of beauty, the Bristol Channel changing its hues with every passing cloud; beyond it the hills of Wales looking so near that the mind almost refuses to believe it would take from three to four hours' good steaming to cross that streak of silver. Hierst Point, rising rugged and bare on the near side, recalls the fate of one fine old deer, who leaped from its point to the shore below after standing, statue-like, there for more than an hour; while a mass of sea fog hangs over the North hill and shuts its brown surface from view nearly down to the Selworthy woods, where he was found. Porlock Bay, crowded with fishing-boats, glistens like a diamond between the rugged hills; the fertile valley with its meadows green as emeralds, and, here and there, a yellow cornfield not yet reaped, showing up golden between the hedgerows, acts as a foil. Nearer still the hills of Leigh and Parsonage, their huge grey rocks and boulders narrowing into the gorge which forms Horner Green, down to which a narrow path leads from the oak-crowned Cloutsham Ball. As it were, close beneath our feet is

the coombe, whose sides are clothed with Horner Woods-a mere brake looked at from here, but dark and solemn as the Forest Primeval, where you descend to its deepest recesses, and find yourself amidst gigantic trees, and in a shade which the sun scarcely pierces at mid-day. A breeze, with just a suspicion of east in its keenness, sweeps up from the Channel, and, fanning our cheeks, whispers that exertion will be a pleasure even thus early in autumn, and, stirring the leaves on the hillside, shows where the rowan has already put forth its red berries, to break the monotony of the deep green which the livelong summer has clothed the woods, the forerunner of those gorgeous tints which are to clothe the hillsides ere winter settles dark upon them.

Such was the scene which greeted our eyes when we last met the 'Devon and Somerset' at Cloutsham on a bright autumn morning. Let us try to sketch in the figures that are to fill the foreground of the picture, first divesting our minds of the idea that it is either a race meeting or monster picnic at which we are assisting, for verily, by the number of carriages filled with the beauty of Devon and Somerset which are present and the hampers that are being unpacked, we may well fancy that it is either one or the other.

All the eating and drinking, however, does not go on al fresco, for although, alas! we do not see the present Sir Thomas Ackland by the side of those coverts his forefathers hunted for generations in true princely style, he not only preserves the deer over the whole of his estates, but takes care that those who wish it shall find refreshment in the farmhouse at Cloutsham on hunting days and have a taste of real West-country cider. The woods are large and the tufting will probably be long, so there is much stabling of steeds, and people lay themselves out for luncheon, fun, and flirtation. It is not so with Arthur Heal, who, leaving the gallant little grey that has carried him through so many good runs in the hands of his second horseman, proceeds to draw the five couple of tufters whose mission it is to rouse the deer, chosen not, as many suppose, from the staid old hounds, the Solons of the pack, but from the two- and three-seasoned hunters, whose strength and vigour enables them to stand the tremendous strain of this work and afterwards live through the run. Having selected the requisite number, not without protests on the part of many of their companions who are left behind, Arthur mounts a wiry-looking brown, and at a signal from the Master, who has been in deep consultation with the harbourer, threads his way cautiously through the crowd and disappears amongst the oaks of Cloutsham Ball, followed by the tufters and George Fewings, whose scarlet, some few minutes later, is seen giving a bit of colour to the leafy shades of Leigh Hill, not far from that truly Alpine ascent known as the Devil's Path.

Now let us look about us, for though the assemblage is, in the strictest sense of the word, a motley one, and more than half who are here have very little idea of sport, we shall find, leavening the mass, many a good man and true who would hold his own across any

505821

country-ay, and more than that, who knows what hounds are doing as well as when to gallop and when to give them room.

First and foremost, of course, stands the Master, Mr. Mordaunt Fenwick Bisset, to whom the thanks of all who love true sport are due for having resuscitated wild stag-hunting when it was really and truly on its last legs. From the time the old staghounds had been sold in 1825, things went badly with the Devon and Somerset on the whole. During some seasons it was difficult to get a pack into the field at all, in others the tufting was given up and the coverts drawn with the pack, when riot of course ensued, and the right animal was not always selected, hinds and calves coming in for more attention than was at all times there due; then the spring hunting was indulged in much too freely, and though only barren hinds of course were willingly hunted, accidents sometimes happened, and mother and offspring, we fear, too often were destroyed together. If this was spared them, the teeming mothers of the herd were driven about, harassed, and disturbed at a time when they needed solitude and quiet. Mr. Bisset at once worked a reform, and established the old rules of woodcraft, by tufting for his deer, and as soon as possible discontinued the spring hunting-a thing which, apart from anything it may have to do with sport, entitles him to the gratitude of all humane and right-thinking people. The consequence has been a steady increase of deer and a renewal of sport such as the oldest stag-hunter cannot call to mind. A few years ago half a dozen stags were all they could afford to kill without endangering the next season's sport. Now they may kill as many as Arthur Heal and his pack can compass the death of; and the red deer which twenty years since, owing to poaching and mismanagement, seemed. to be fast dying out on Exmoor, have increased and multiplied, so that now there is little fear of failure. Moreover, Mr. Bisset has taught the farmers and landowners to look on them as friends instead of foes, so that a man had better kill a fox at Melton Spinney or Althorp Park than a deer at Cloutsham or Dulverton. He has made stag-hunting so popular that it annually brings a large influx of money to these once poor and barren regions.

It is something to step into the breach, and in twenty years work such a reform as this; and we may well behold the man who has done it with respect as he takes his stand on the top of a bank, field-glass in hand, to watch the tufting. Does he not look a man likely to overcome difficulties and wield autocratic power in these wilds? There is no hesitation when he gives a command, no vacillating when decision is wanted. He knows he can depend on his own judgment, his men, and his hounds. He knows what staghunting should be and carries it out to the letter. Outsiders may suggest this, that, and the other; he keeps his own council and passes their suggestions by, often with a sarcastic humour, which must make them blush for their folly, like the man who, viewing a lot of hinds away, kept telling the Master that several deer had broken covert, and was at last stopped by the quiet intimation that he

(the Master) had never denied the fact of their having done so. He had not quite the best of it, though, when a keen son of Vulcan came up in breathless haste to announce that he had harboured a warrantable deer, and being asked if he knew what a warrantable deer was, promptly answered, Two upon top on both sides with all his rights, I calls a warrantable deer; I don't know what you 'calls 'em ;' and forthwith turned on his heel, in a fit of the sulks, and left the tufters to make him out as they could. Mr. Bisset, however, must have received such an amount of false information from would-be harbourers during his Mastership, that he may well be doubtful of anything heard from an unknown source. He knows every move in the game, and when he shuts up his glasses and mounts his weight-carrier, you may be sure that a huntable deer is gone away; and more than that, although he gets into the saddle at a weight which would keep most men out of it, that if he is not always in front, be the run long or short, hunting or racing, he will drop, as it were, from the clouds at unexpected times on them, see it all, and hear the 'mort' blown at last. Let us leave him to the anxious duties of his post and turn to other well-known characters. Ah! here comes one that it gladdens every heart to see at the covert-side, for prince and peasant have equally a welcome for 'Jack Russell;' we must give him his nom de chasse instead of the more clerical one of the Rev. John Russell. Note the lithe, wiry figure and clear eye as he winds his horse amongst the crowd with a cheery greeting for all, and say if time hath not dealt kindly with the best sportsman of the West, and his fourscore years do not sit lightly on him? He has ridden over thirty miles this morning, and, probably, having seen the run, will ride as far back to his quiet parsonage when all is over, and think as little of it as most men would of an exercise canter. A sportsman from youth, at one time hunting a pack of foxhounds with unparalleled success, the Rev. John Russell is such a man as you only see once in a lifetime, and we are willing to wager that, could all the hunting intelligence found at a great meet with the Queen's, the Baron's, the Surrey, or any other pack of staghounds be condensed and put into one head, that he has forgotten more about, not only deer-hunting, but sport generally, than that head could ever have contained. As a judge of the run of deer, fox, or hare, he is nulli secundus; and the way the decisions at the late Yorkshire Hound Shows were greeted by the outer ring of huntsmen, when he formed one of the bench, speak volumes for his and his brother judges' knowledge of hounds as well as hunting, not always synonymous terms, by-the-way. May we meet him for years to come when the heather is in bloom and the red deer in season!

Note that slight young man who has just shaken him so heartily by the hand-a rare good one, we warrant you, who comes of good old stag-hunting blood. That is Lord Ebrington; and, when Earl Fortescue is not out, he worthily represents the Castle Hill interest at the covert-side-an interest which has peopled the woods on the

north-western side once more with deer, and showed us plainly enough last season that the hospitality which reigned so bountifully there in the old days is still as strong as ever. He goes right well when hounds run, though, entre nous, he looks more in place here than larking over fences at a horse show, as does his hollow-backed bay mare. Chatting to him is a rare visitor with these hounds, though always a welcome one, Lord Lymington, who inherits all his father's love of hunting, and comes further afield than the Earl, who, like most Masters of Hounds, sticks pretty close to his own pack, and Charley Littleworth, merely taking a peep at the staghounds when they are on the Dulverton side, and that generally after the descendants of Nobleman, Nosegay, and Co. have made an early breakfast on cub. Nevertheless, should an outlying deer find his way to the Eggesford Woods, there is a hearty welcome and safe harbourage until he can be conveniently hunted. Mr. Whidbourne, who is accompanied by his daughter, both on rare good-looking greys, is an ex-M.F.H., and once presided over the North Devon country.

But listen there is the note of a tufter, and half the young ones, who don't know the difficulty of getting an old stag on his legs, are already in the saddle, tightening their girths and throwing away cigars. Vain hope! for see Captain Dalton, who is too old a visitor here not to know what's what, is just pointing out to Miss Kinglake (did we not fear to offend, we should add the usual addenda of pretty Miss Kinglake) a hind stealing up Parsonage Hill with her calf; and that most enthusiastic of sportsmen and jolliest of farmers, John Joyce of Allercott, who, keen as ginger, has been assisting in the tufting on his white-legged cob, for which he has refused a good round sum, having also viewed her, has galloped up the steep hillpath to stop the hounds. Presently, if they run, we shall see him handle a hot one over the moor as few men could do, for he is a beautiful horseman. Moreover, he has some sons who promise to keep the family credit up to the mark when he resigns spur and pigskin, though he says they keep him terribly short of horses now.

We may look about us as the five couple once more gather round Arthur's horse, and he again dives into the depths of Horner, to try and rouse the big stag.' Sorry are we to say that some well-known faces are wanting to complete the scene. Perhaps most missed of all is Mr. Knight of Simonsbath, who so skilfully piloted us through the mysteries of Badgeworthy and across the moor in the first and best run we ever saw with these hounds. Mr. Granville Somerset is also absent, and, of course, Mrs. Somerset, who went as well here as we have seen her do at Badminton, when, in years gone by, she liked to try the mettle of Tom Clark, on Saffron or Canary, across the vale. Neither is Miss Leslie here. And we miss the easy seat of Major Whyte-Melville, who went so well on his compact chestnuts, the grey-quartered mare, and Punch, and seemed also quite at home on the leggy, irritable bay, who knew little of the business in hand, and must, as his rider said, 'have had his mane plaited not very long 'since.' We should like to see him here again, and be still better