206 RED DEER. 



Upon one side of the hearth is a long ver- 

 tical steel handle, brightly polished, much 

 like the valve-handle of an engine. By this 

 handle the smoke-jack is regulated ; at a 

 touch a small endless chain depending from 

 the chimney causes the horizontal spit to 

 slowly revolve. Looking up the chimney 

 the smoke-jack fills the cavity, like a hori- 

 zontal windmill perpetually revolving, driven 

 by the heated air ascending. In how few, 

 even of the most ancient houses, are smoke- 

 jacks still at work. No meat is so good 

 and richly flavoured as that cooked before a 

 wood fire. 



Coming out at the arched porch under the 

 carved helmet and the inscription (not only 

 written in a dead language, but the very 

 letters ground away by Time), a May-fly 

 has wandered into the hollow as far as the 

 sunshine slants. His wings something the 

 colour of thin old glass, weather-beaten to a 



