236 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



bird voices are heard, so that the tap tap of a 

 woodpecker sounds startlingly clear and loud. 

 You can almost imagine you hear the fritillaries 

 fluttering among the branches overhead. In the 

 moist bottom of a valley we find the fresh spoor 

 of a heavy stag, and later come upon the mud- 

 hole where he wallowed last night. But many 

 times before we have come on such signs without 

 finding the beast that made them. It seems 

 from the feeling in the air to be getting on in 

 the afternoon when we arrive at a dell over- 

 grown with greenery a spot enchanted. 



" Deep in the shady sadness of a veil, 

 Far from the healthy breath of morn, 

 Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star." 



But it is not the form of the old god Saturn 

 that, half concealed in a thicket, rises slowly to 

 his feet. Only an old grey stag. His sharp ears 

 have caught the whisper of the dry leaves ; per- 

 haps he thinks it is some rival stag. Boldly he 

 trots out into the open and wheels about facing 

 us, his antlers thrown back and dies. 



He was a very old stag whose head had gone 

 back, but still a royal. 



