206 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



this occasion was beautifully chosen. At my back 

 a deep forest *ose for several hundred feet, in 

 front was a swampy meadow (perhaps 600 yards 

 across, and two English miles long), through 

 which ran as sweet a little trout stream as I have 

 ever seen in this country or anywhere else. Beyond 

 this rose another deep forest, and as it was pretty 

 certain that the driven elk would cross this meadow 

 and stream to reach the forest at the back of us, 

 the guns were planted, but at wide intervals (for 

 we had to command a long line), along the little 

 stream. I lay at the foot of an old pine, lazily 

 watching the trout rising in the little stream at my 

 feet. The air was warm as spring ; the sun shone 

 clear in an unclouded sky, over as fair a panorama 

 of nature as the eye ever gazed upon. 



" Beetling crags hung high above me, 



Ever looking grandly rude ; 

 Still there was some trace of mildness 

 In this scene so weird. Its wildness 

 Might be sought for solitude." 



All at once the distant cry of the beaters 

 broke upon my ear, and at the same moment I 

 heard a crashing in the forest before me. Start- 

 ing up from my reverie, I saw a bull elk walking 

 leisurely down to the meadow, as if he apparently 

 meant to cross right opposite to where I sat. He 

 had evidently heard the beaters, for he would 



