246 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



opinions to be thrust into the huntsman's ears (ears that should 

 be, and, it is to be hoped, are, at such a moment deaf as door- 

 posts, to everything but absolute and tangible information, on 

 which to frame action decisive and untrammeled). At length 

 the pack are laid on to a track entering the wood — as fate 

 would have it, not the track of the forward deer. This line leads 

 them back to Molland Wood, men following under the weight 

 of crushed hope and pungent disappointment. Through wood- 

 land ride and deep-cut lane, by riverside and marshy meadow — 

 instead of over the free wide common and the rich deep heather 

 — we follow for an hour and a half, under the blazing heat of 

 a sun that is little like that of an English September. The 

 stag must have felt the sunshine even more ; for the course of 

 his last half hour is never a hundred yards from the River 

 Bray — hounds hunting him with a tenacity that leaves him 

 no chance. By Castle Hill he follows the stream till it runs 

 under the railway ; leaves the water, in view ; and, with the pack 

 rushing in for blood, struggles up the embankment of the line. 

 On the railway they are round him in a moment. He turns 

 for a last effort, and breaks through them on to the viaduct. 

 But like wolves they fasten on him from head to haunch. 

 Two, bolder than the rest, have him by the throat. With, a 

 mighty struggle he shakes them off, with what strength is left 

 drives his antlers upon them, and rolls them howling across 

 the rails. But his race is run, his life is all but gone. With 

 their very weight the huge hounds bear him down, the knife 

 is at his throat, the pack is whipped off, his carcase hurried 

 off the metals — and in a moment a train rushes screaming 

 over the spot of the death struggle. So nearly does Mr. Bisset 

 lose the few of his old favourites still left him after last season's 

 misfortune. 



It was a young stag that died. " Not more than four years 

 old" — so said the experts who proclaimed him to have but " two 

 on top on one side, none on the other, and no bray." And he 

 died quickly for so young a deer. But the da} r was intensely 

 hot ; and he was fat to a degree altogether unbecoming to youth ; 



