THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 309 



not bother me, and peer through the firs. Something 

 is moving. No yes ! it is a roe. Buck or doe is 

 now the question, for the close time for the latter lasts 

 till October. As it passes between those two firs I 

 catch the light on its head. Horns ! Instinctively the 

 rifle begins to go up. I glance down to see that it 

 clears the green branches in front, and bring it up to 

 my porthole. Five-and-twenty yards to my front is a 

 gap between two trees, where the light strikes down 

 right to the moss. 



The buck moves fearlessly along at a slow 

 walk. Not much allowance required for movement 

 to-day. I sight the middle of the shoulder-blade. 

 Crack ! the buck gives a bound and lies kicking. 

 Before I reach him he is dead. I pull him away some 

 yards from the game-path and proceed to gralloch 

 him, wondering as I do so for how much money 

 sportsmen would undertake the butcherly job on a 

 sheep which they so readily do on a deer. At last it 

 is finished. Drawing out the extensor tendon of a 

 foreleg above the knee, I pass the other leg through it, 

 which enables me to hang him on a stout fir-branch, 

 out of foxes' reach. I hang my shooting seat beside 

 him and stumble through the now dark wood till I 

 reach the high-road, when I put my best foot fore- 

 most. Stopping at the keeper's to bid him go for the 

 buck at dawn, I reach home after eight. A long day, 

 but this is the result twenty-seven partridges, seven- 

 teen quail, three hares, and a roebuck. The buck was 

 a small one with only four points probably a two-year- 

 old. 



