224 DAYS OF DEEE-STALKING. 



his blood gushed out in torrents. A man was left to gral- 

 loch him. Lightfoot could not be torn away from the dun 

 beauty : the hill-man, as he gralloched the deer, and drank 

 the whiskey, swore there never was such a deer seen in the 

 forest ; he grew larger and larger at every quaigh-full, and 

 there was no saying to what a portentous size he might 

 have arrived, had not the flask been fairly drunk out. 



The rest of the party went slowly forward, till at length 

 they saw the other wounded hart lying in a bog. He was 

 extended, and kept his head as low as possible; it was 

 apparent, then, that he was not only alive, but had his 

 senses about him. Tortoise crept cautiously up, and sent a 

 ball through the back of his head as deadly a shot as can 

 be made. 



The smile of joy danced on every countenance, but chiefly 

 on thine, O Lightfoot; the warm current came tingling 

 through your veins : there was a buoyancy of spirit, and 

 an air of success about you that proclaimed you a king 

 a hero a demigod ! Hercules was a pretty fellow ; so was 

 Theseus ; so was Pirithous ; but, although they subdued 

 various monsters, they probably never killed so fine a stag 

 in all their lives. Happy, thrice happy mortal ! happier 

 far than Candide, when he met Miss Cunegonde amongst the 

 Turks, or (to make a more apt comparison) than our own 

 Phidias,* when he killed two woodcocks at one shot. Thou 

 shouldst have died that moment, my own hero : alas, why 

 did you survive, to pace over geometrical enclosures in pur- 

 suit of pigmy game ? But bear thy faculties meekly, whilst 

 the deer are being gralloched, and the black flag is hung on 

 the bonny antler to scare away the raven. 



" Now, Tortoise, I really think that Macrobius, and the 

 rest of Virgil's commentators, are senseless goupies ; for I 

 am ready to maintain, in spite of them all, that the slaying 

 of such a magnificent animal as this was a very fit cause 

 for the Latin war 



' Cervus erat forma prssstanti, et cornibus ingens.' 



* Who has not heard of Sir Francis Chantrey's skill with his gun and his 

 fishing-rod ? The above incident occurred at a great battue at the Duke 

 of Bedford's probably and the whole party saluted Sir Francis on the 

 occasion with solemn deference, each individual passing before him in suc- 

 cession, and making his obeisance. 



