AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK. 305 



from the hawthorn to the bramble, thence to the rose 

 and the grass, gives to the vista of the broad path a soft, 

 ^rraceful aspect. 



After the fawns had disappeared, the squire went on and 

 entered under the beeches from which they had emerged. 

 He had not gone far before he struck and followed a 

 path which wound between the beech trunks and was 

 entirely arched over by their branches. Squirrels raced 

 away at the sound of hiis footsteps, darting over the 

 ground and up the stems of the trees in an instant. A 

 slight rustling now and then showed that a rabbit had 

 been startled. Pheasants ran too, but noiselessly, and 

 pigeons rose from the boughs above. The wood- 

 pigeons rose indeed, but they were not much frightened, 

 and quickly settled again. So little shot at, they felt 

 safe, and only moved from habit. 



He crossed several paths leading in various directions, 

 but went on, gradually descending till the gable end of 

 a farmhouse became visible through the foliage. The 

 old red tiles were but a few yards distant from the 

 boughs of the last beech, and there was nothing be- 

 tween the house and the forest but a shallow trench 

 almost filled with dead brown leaves and edged with 

 fern. Out from that trench, sometimes stealthily slipping 

 between the flattened fern -stalks, came a weasel, and, 

 running through the plantains and fringe-like mayweed 

 or stray pimpernel which covered the neglected ground, 

 made for the straw-rick. Searching about for mice, he 

 was certain to come across a hen's o.^^ in some corner, 

 perhaps in a hay-crib, which the cattle, now being in 

 the meadow, did not use. Or a stronger stoat crept out 

 and attacked anything that he fancied. Very often 

 there was a rabbit sitting in the long grass which grows 

 round under an old hay-rick. He would sit still and let 



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