THE WOTTON BUCK 275 



then drew up in line, a man between the two guns, to beat for 

 him, when James Bromfield exclaimed to Mr. Boultbee, on 

 coming to some old hollow furze, " Look out, sir, it's likely ; " 

 and the words were hardly uttered when up sprang the buck, 

 and bounded away directly to Mr. Boultbee's right, offering no 

 clean shot, save at the back of his head; we both fired, and 

 though at a long distance the buck fell, but rose again, and 

 made for Wilverley enclosure. I snatched my single rifle from 

 my man's hand, and shot at him as he ran, and missed him, 

 when he again stood still ; but as Druid was by this time roar- 

 ing on his traces, the running again commenced. Having 

 gained the wood, he gave us plenty to do, for the wounds which 

 knocked him down had only stunned him for a time ; however, 

 after a random shot or two, which again struck him, and one 

 which missed him, Mr. Boultbee got a good chance, and finished 

 the matter. He was a nice deer, considering the way in which 

 the forest had been continuously disturbed, and, according to 

 the rates fixed by the Crown at which the venison was to be 

 sold, I valued him at sixpence a pound. He would have been 

 better but for the following fact, which utterly put to flight my 

 superstition as to the fairies. A rifle-ball had struck him over 

 the hip, and glancing from the set of the ribs on the backbone, 

 it had run within the skin to an inch above the tip or wither of 

 the shoulder, and there lodged under the skin of the neck. On 

 examination, the appearance of the graze indicated that it must 

 have been received just about the time when, from the keepers' 

 account, the buck which my hound followed across the road 

 into Holmesley Wood had been changed into a doe, and as such, 

 to their eyes, fired on by them. I feel sure, civil to them as I 

 always am, that the fairies did not change the keepers' doe into 

 a buck to deceive me ; and therefore my conclusion very naturally 

 is, that the keepers, in disobedience of orders, shot at a deer a 

 year older than they had authority to do, and flagrantly dis- 

 obeyed the commands of the Commission. I am confident that 

 on Wotton and Holmesley they did so, not only from finding 

 prohibited aged male deer dead, their deaths caused by rifle- 



