CHAPTER XVI 



MORE DAYS OF ROAMING AND SPORT 



The skirts of this wild wood. 



As You Like It. 



Why do your dogs bark so ? be there bears ? 



Merry Wives of Windsor. 



For a few days we varied things by camping out in 

 a remote corner of the forest, the better to reach the 

 oUen country. We had a most palatial tent, like that 

 of a colonel of old-time volunteers, whilst the Prince 

 contented himself with a most unroyal residence 

 propped up against ours. Before our doors raced the 

 turbulent stream, and in its shallows we caught " swift 

 trouts diversified with crimson stains " for breakfast. 

 Most impartial trout, who rose to any fly at any time 

 of day. 



This woodland home of ours was the most beautiful 

 of all our homes ; the wind-swept camps on the moun- 

 tain tops in Daghestan were more magnificent, but the 

 still green deeps, banked with the bracken of years, 

 the boles of the silver birch shining like bars of silver 

 through the gloom, and the thread of the river winding, 

 winding to the sea, caught us and held us in its tender 

 lure as no grim snow scene could ever do. The atmo- 

 sphere was so luminously clear, and the night sky afire 



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