THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 27 



may have dreaded an encounter. And how he shook 

 all over, and was scarcely quite relieved when the stag, 

 quietly stepping across without noticing us, went over 

 the upper flight as well, up-hill too, and at what seemed 

 a tremendous disadvantage : this time just clearing the 

 wire with his forelegs, but coming down heavily upon 

 it with the hind ones, in such a way as would have led 

 a careful rider to make keen research. Yet the spotted 

 buck never minded it the least, but simply went full 

 charge at a dark one, which we now saw for the first 

 time, and who was apparently an exile from the herd. 



Rattle 1— clatter ! — clang! — clang ! — and our thorough- 

 bred was nearly wild with terror or excitement at the 

 antler engagement. We trot off in fear of mishap to 

 ourselves, in case our steed might be blinded by fright, 

 and victimize us both upon the fence. Mrs. Hemans 

 could scarcely have been between wires on a steeple- 

 chaser, when she viewed a like delicious scene to com- 

 memorate it afterwards in those immortal lines : 



" The stately homes of England, 



How beautiful they stand ! 

 Amidst their tall ancestral trees, 



O'er all the pleasant land. 

 The deer across their greensward bound 



Through shade and sunny gleam, 

 And the swan glides past them with the sound 



Of some rejoicing stream. " 



Returning across the park, when once clear of the 

 wire, I found such mushrooms as I longed to carry 

 home. Alas ! we have dug up the spawn repeatedly 

 from a meadow that yields thickly a most delicious 

 annual crop, but comparatively tasteless is the produce 

 grown from this same spawn in the house under 



