AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK. 297 



There is no tree so much of the forest as the beech. 

 On the verge of woods the oaks are far apart, the ashes 

 thin ; the verge is like a wilderness and scrubby, so that 

 the forest does not seem to begin till you have penetrated 

 some distance. Under the beeches the forest begins at 

 once. They stand at the edge of the slope, huge round 

 boles rising from the mossy ground, wide fans of branches 

 — a shadow under them, a greeny darkness beyond 

 There is depth there — depth to be explored, depth to 

 hide in. If there is a path, it is arched over like a tunnel 

 with boughs ; you know not whither it goes. The fawns 

 are sweetest in the sunlight, moving down from the 

 shadow ; the doe best partly in shadow, partly in sun, 

 when the branch of a tree casts its interlaced work, fine 

 as Algerian silverwork, upon the back ; the buck best 

 when he stands among the fern, alert, yet not quite 

 alarmed — for he knows the length of his leap — his horns 

 up, his neck high, his dark eye bent on you, and every 

 sinew strung to spring away. One spot of sunlight, 

 bright and white, falls through the branches upon his 

 neck, a fatal place, or near it : a guide, that bright white 

 spot, to the deadly bullet, as in old days to the cross- 

 bow bolt. It was needful even then to be careful of the 

 aim, for the herd, as Shakespeare tells us, at once recog- 

 nised the sound of a cross-bow : the jar of the string, 

 tight-strained to the notch by the goat's-foot lever, the 

 slight whiz of the missile, were enough to startle them 

 and to cause the rest to swerve and pass out of range. 

 Yet the cross-bow was quiet indeed compared with the 

 gun which took its place. The cross-bow was the begin- 

 ning of shooting proper, as we now understand it ; that is, 

 of taking an aim by the bringing of one point into a line 

 with another. With the long-bow aim indeed was taken, 

 but quite differently, for if the arrow were kept waiting 



