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CHAPTER XVI. 



" I sat me down on the centre liill, 



Where the four rides make a star; 

 A buck brovvs'd there I wish'd to kill 



Ere the season wan'd too far. 

 Frisk'd forth the rabbit to the sward ; 



But he stamp'd at a fox in cover ; 

 The fox stole out, and star'd me hard 



Ere he sprung on the drain bank-over ; 

 Through the thick thorns he took his way, 

 Mark'd for a space by the screaming jay, 



Her top -knot rais'd at the prowling ghost, 



As she view'd him from her fir-tree roost." 



The Last of the New Furest Deer.—G. F.B. 



Turning from sadder tilings, the reader shall now 

 have some account of ray sport in the forest. My 

 first act after receiving the forest license to shoot, 

 was to ask the several rangers, — Mr. Sturges Bourne, 

 and the Duke of Cambridge, — if I might hunt the otter 

 and course hares in the forest. Having received 

 permission from each in succession, I resolved to have 

 a touch at the otters, and I wrote to my old servant, 

 George Carter, then with the Duke of Grafton, for 

 any old worn-out and steady hounds. He sent 

 me some, and wrote to say that my old favourite 

 fox-hound Harrogate, if I liked it, should accom- 

 pany them, as he had no longer any use to put 

 him to. Harrogate and I had not met for years, but 

 the meeting at Beacon was just as joyful as if we had 

 been severed but for a day. His joy affected the other 

 hounds who camxe with him, who, seeino; him so de- 

 lighted, at once fawned upon me, and came bounding 



