AFTER DEER 257 



surf as it tumbles in on the beach without. But the 

 choice of the site was influenced by considerations 

 rather practical than sentimental, and the mansion 

 stands hard by the great water-way paddled over by 

 the coasting steamer that keeps your communications 

 open with your grocer and wine-merchant, and the 

 world in general. Behind, and to right and left, 

 forest and moors stretch away in weary leagues of hill 

 and bog, peat and heather, and in the most distant 

 glens, had you a prejudice in favour of always sleeping 

 sheltered by a roof-tree, the deer might find perpetual 

 sanctuary. The hospitable natives who dwell afar by 

 the shore would gladly welcome you to those turf- 

 built hovels of theirs, where the blue peat reek, after 

 pervading each nook and corner, escapes at last 

 through the hole that does duty as a chimney. But 

 independently of shortcomings in the architectural 

 arrangements, the well-bleached sheets that gape so 

 temptingly for you are generally teeming with vigorous 

 animal life. Should you commit yourself to them and 

 slumber, but brief time will elapse before you awake 

 again to consciousness, and then your fevered and 

 mangled frame seems to have slept in minutes an 

 uneasy sleep of hours. But it is the less needful to 

 throw yourself on native hospitality, or to bivouac 

 under flimsy canvas, that when you go out to play 

 Robinson Crusoe you find classical and appropriate 

 quarters in a comfortable cave. During long ages the 

 Atlantic has been at work fashioning you a dwelling- 

 place, and if Nature has not reared there a minster 



