AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK. 295 



hollow ; it was a trail made by the squire, one of whose 

 favourite strolls was in this direction. This summer 

 morning, taking his gun, he followed the trail once 

 more. 



The grass was longer and coarser under the shadow 

 of the limes, and upborne on the branches were numerous 

 little sticks which had dropped from the rookery above. 

 Sometimes there was an overthrown nest like a sack of 

 twigs turned out on the turf, such as the hedgers rake 

 together after fagoting. Looking up into the trees on a 

 summer's day not a bird could be seen, till suddenly 

 there was a quick 'jack-jack' above, as a daw started 

 from his hole or from where the great boughs joined the 

 trunk. The squire's path went down the hollow till it 

 deepened into a thinly wooded coomb, through which 

 ran the streamlet coming from the wheat-fields under 

 the road. As the coomb opened, the squire went along 

 a hedge near but not quite to the top. Years ago the 

 coomb had been quarried for chalk, and the pits were 

 only partly concealed by the bushes : the yellow spikes 

 of wild mignonette flourished on the very hedge, and 

 even half way down the precipices. From the ledge 

 above, the eye could see into these and into the recesses 

 between the brushwood. The squire's son, Mr. Martin, 

 used to come here with his rook-rifle, for he could always 

 get a shot at a rabbit in the hollow. They could not 

 see him approach ; and the ball, if it missed, did no 

 damage, being caught as in a bowl. Rifles in England, 

 even when their range is but a hundred yards or so, are 

 not to be used without caution. Some one may be in 

 the hedge nutting, or a labourer may be eating his 

 luncheon in the shelter ; it is never possible to tell who 

 may be behind the screen of brambles through which 

 the bullet slips so easily. Into these hollows Martin 



