They roused me up one winter morn, The frost it cut my feet, My red, red blood came trickling down, And made the scent lie sweet. For many a mile they did me run, Before the sun went down, Then I was brought to give a teen, And fall upon the groun'.
The first rode up, it was the Duke: Said he, "I'll have my will!" A blade from out his belt he drew My sweet red blood to spill. So with good cheer they murdered me, As I lay on the ground; My harmless life it bled away, Brave huntsmen cheering round.
I am a little puzzled as to whether the dry sarcasm in this song is intentional.[21] The melody is peculiarly sweet and plaintive. _When_ a royal duke hunted last on Dartmoor I have been unable to ascertain.
The red deer were anciently common on Dartmoor. It was not till King John's reign that Devon was disafforested, with the exception of Dartmoor and Exmoor. But the deer were mischievous to the crops of the farmer, and to the young plantations, and farmers, yeomen, and squires combined to get rid of them from Dartmoor. Still, however, occasionally one runs from Exmoor and takes refuge in the woods about the Dart, the Plym, and the Tavy.
But it is for fox, hare, and otter hunting that the sportsman goes to Dartmoor, and not for the deer. A very pretty sight it is to see a pack with the scarlet coats after it sweeping over the moorside in pursuit of Reynard, and to hear the music of the hounds and horns.
For the harriers the great week is that after hare-hunting is at an end in the lowlands or "in-country." Then the several packs that have hunted through the season on the circumference of the moor unite on it, and take turns through the week on the moor itself. The great day of that week is Bellever Day, when the meet is on the tor of that name. I have described it in my _Book of the West_, and will not repeat what has been already related. But I will venture to quote an account of otter-hunting on the Dart from the pen of Mr. William Collier, than whom no one has been more of an enthusiast for sport on the moor.
"The West Dart is the perfection of a Dartmoor river, flowing bright and rapid over a bed of granite boulders richly covered with moss and lichen, its banks bedecked with ferns and wild flowers of the moor, and fringed with the bog-myrtle and withy.