20 DEER-STALKING. 



thoroiiglily graphic : — " Yonder, by the birches, stancls 

 a red deer, snuffing the east wind ! He suspects an 

 enemy hi that airt ; but death comes upon him, ^nth 

 stealthy foot, from the west : and if Apollo and Diana 

 be now propitious, his antlers shall be entangled in 

 the heather, and his hoofs beat the heavens. Flourish 

 the rifle — a tinkle as of iron — and a hiss accompanying 

 the explosion — and the king of the wilderness, bound- 

 ing up into the air ^^ith his antlers higher than ever 

 waved chieftain s plume, falls do^^ai stone dead where 

 he stood; for the blue pill has gone through his 

 vitals, and lightning itself could hardly have withered 

 him into more instantaneous cessation of life ! He 

 is an enormous animal ! What antlers ! Roll him over 

 once on his side — See ! up to oiu' breast reaches the 

 topmost branch! He is a 'stag of ten;' his eye 

 has lost the flash of freedom — the tongue that browsed 

 the bnishwood is bitten through by the clenched 

 teeth — the fleetness of his feet has felt that fatal 

 frost — the wild heart is hushed and tame ! — and there 

 the monarch of the mountains — the king of the cliffs — 

 the grand lama of the glens — the sultan of the soli- 

 tudes — the dey of the deserts — the royal ranger of 

 the woods and forests — yea, the very prince of the 

 air, and thane of thunder, ' shorn of all his beams,' 

 lies motionless as a dead jackass by the way-side ! — 

 he, who at dawn had boiTowed the wings of the ^vind 

 to carry him across the cataracts ! "' 



