a day's sport on the krammets berg. 161 



the shoulder of the mountain, aud lower down. Now 

 then, let us go." 



I confess I did not like Xavier's plan, for it was most 

 painful to me to leave the chamois there, both badly 

 wounded, to suffer until we came back. I honestly avow 

 I am not one of those excessively humane persons who 

 find cruelty in the chase. To send a bail through a stag 

 or roebuck, and so take his life at once, does not give me 

 a pang, for I do not deem it cruel ; although whenever 

 I stand beside an animal whose life I have just taken, 

 a sudden emotion within always keeps me silent. The 

 taking life, the destroying that which only God can give, 

 seems a so daring deed ; and, contradictory as it may 

 appear for a hunter to say so, my first feeling, as I look 

 at the heap before me, which but now was such a thing 

 for wonder, is to be astounded at what my hand has done. 



For be it remembered that it is not in killing his 

 quarry that the hunter's delight consists, but in the ex- 

 citement of the pursuit, in the varying chances, in the 

 u hope deferred," and above all in that crowning moment 

 when whispering to himself; " Now he is mine I"* Then 



* In these verses from ' The Ballad of the Eoyal Hunt in the New 

 Forest,' some of these pleasurable moments have beenreferred to. 



" Oh, that's delight to be in the greenwood, 

 When all is solemnly still, 

 And there's hardly a breeze to move the leaves 

 Atop of the wooded hill ; 



" And watch with expectant and longing ear 

 For the merest coming sound ; 

 And, breathless, at last hear a rustling step 

 Move stealthily o'er the ground ; 



" And then to behold, with exulting eye, 

 The creature with antlered crest 

 Emerge from a thicket, whose leafy boughs 

 Give way 'fore his broad, brown chest ; 



M 



