RED DEER. 



spray. No insects enter here through the 

 half-open door there is no hum : it is 

 silent, cool, and old. 



The very polish of the oak is lustreless, 

 it is smooth, but does not reflect. Old 

 shadowy days of rapier and ruff, armour, and 

 petronel, days when the Spanish Main was 

 on all men's lips ; of Sir Francis Drake, 

 whose cannon sound still in the hottest 

 hours of summer ; old shadowy days, melted 

 into night three centuries since, have left a 

 little of their twilight in this hall. There 

 is a dream in every chair; romance grown 

 richer with age like the colour of the oak 

 forth from the iron-studded door goes the 

 cavalier and his lady a-hawking. 



As the men who built this chamber lived 

 their time in the forest and on the moors, 

 thumbing no weary books, so it is right that 

 to this hour it should be filled with the 

 spoils and curiosities of the woods. A 



