222 ANOTHER DAY ON THE HILL 



utmost yet, as you feel, without the faintest success 

 to look as if your temples were not throbbing as though 

 they would burst, and as though your chest were not 

 compressed with a band of adamant ! 



This time he spies to some purpose. Be still, 

 bumping heart ! be steady, quivering hands ! cease to 

 flow, O eyes, not with tears, but with the sweat of my 

 brow! and let me get the glass on these objects like 

 insects on the mountain flank, a mile and a half in 

 front of us. 



Five eight fifteen deer, some grazing, some lying, 

 below a grey crag in the full sunshine. There are two 

 good stags there, so the stalker tells me, and in such 

 cases I never dream of forming my own opinion. Many 

 seasons have been added to the past more than it 

 would serve any agreeable purpose to reckon since 

 first I drew bead upon a warrantable hart, yet am I no 

 nearer now to the power of discriminating between ' a 

 good body ' and a poor one. The quality of the head, 

 of course, is obvious to any duffer who can squint through 

 a glass, but to reckon stones avoirdupois at any distance 

 greater than arm's-length transcends any perception 

 that I have at command. 



They are in a critical place, these deer. The only 

 mode of approach is from above, and the air is flying in 

 such capricious gusts on this lee side of the hill that it 

 will be wonderful luck if they do not get our wind. 

 But the attempt has to be made; we climb five hundred 

 feet higher, above the snow level, then strike along the 

 hill face again, and in half an hour are lying, not in 



