22| SPORT. 



by the impress of his feet, was, I knew, an historical 

 stag, of unknown age, of whom tradition alternately 

 reported that he was both supernatural and 

 invulnerable ; the hitherto unexplained survivor 

 of many supposedly deadly wounds inflicted by 

 sportsmen whom I recognised and acknowledged 

 as infinitely my superiors in the craft. And here 

 was I, face to face with him and all his long 

 antecedents of history and mystery ! He is a 

 mythology in himself. Seldom has he been re- 

 vealed to mortal ken ; yet to me, to-day, he is 

 present in the flesh ; to me to-day has fallen the 

 lot of an encounter which shall either swell the 

 ample roll of his previous victories over sporting 

 man, or raise me at one spring to an elevation 

 of sporting glory far beyond my ambition's wildest 

 dreams or my own self-conscious deserts. I must 

 not quail I do not. I accept the position, and, 

 outwardly at all events, calm, I address myself to 

 the comprehension of how Donald, who now like- 

 wise seems to have mastered his emotion, proposes 



