DISAPPOINTMENT. 281 



Plans well laid and executed, difficulties overcome by 

 skill, by labour, and perseverance, these are the events 

 that flatter our self-complacency, and give the highest zest 

 to the sportsman. 



It is the desire to evince this skill, and surmount these 

 difficulties, that carries the ardent deer-stalker through 

 bog, through burn, up hill, and down precipice ; creeping, 

 wading, running, or lying ; heedless alike of mire, waters, 

 and fatigue : but still with all his caution, even with the 

 most consummate generalship, and in the very tumult of 

 expected success, 



" medio de fonte leporum, 



Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat." 



And if ever a bitter thing did happen, if ever the chalice 

 were dashed from the lips, it was at the critical moment 

 when we left our sportsmen just within shot of the deer. 



" Tears of compassion tremble on our eyelids " whilst we 

 are obliged to recount, that an old chuckling moor-cock 

 sprung from those very bunches of heather, which they 

 vainly thought their haven. 



Oh Puck ! Puck ! why didst thou place that officious 

 bird in that particular spot, to scare away the deer? was 

 there no other place in all this wide forest where he could 

 set his breast ? A thousand, ten thousand there are where 

 surely he might have been as happy ; it was a chance as 

 one to a million : see what a pickle we are in ; mark what 

 we have done, what endured! But thou delightest in 

 mischief, and art grinning, I know, thou impious little elf, 

 and maledetto che tu sia, wert never better pleased in all 

 thy life. The deer, thus warned, broke over the hill, and the 



