THE BUCKS OF CHARBOROUGH 35 



species of deer, and, though to some it may seem superfluous to 

 say so, there are numbers who do not know the difference ; even 

 Sir Walter Scott, in The Monastery, makes the Abbot's kit- 

 chener call a male red deer by both those appellations. Although 

 the month was November in which the scene of the great novelist 

 was laid, the cook tells his superior " there are three inches of 

 fat on the stag's brisket,'" and a " better haunch," though then 

 just killed, would "never be placed on his superior's table." 

 Now, in Scotland, the autumn frosts are earlier than they are 

 with us in the south ; and I take upon myself to say that a stag 

 of an age to be so fat would at that time be so far gone in the 

 rut that no man, whether priest or layman, would have relished 

 a slice of him ; and his fat would have vanished too — the hinds 

 would have had it. With us in the south a stag is not over good 

 after September, though it depends much on the weather. But 

 to return to the affair in Charborough Park, in which it fell to 

 my lot to be defeated. The match was this. 



I was to catch safely, alive and well, five full-headed bucks, 

 not under six yeai-s old. In doing this, or in chasing for the 

 capture, I was to use but one dog and one horse, and if either 

 deer, horse, or dog was disabled, I lost the match. The horse 

 also on which I rode was to lie down while I secured the deer, 

 but never to be out of hand. In singling out the deer another 

 horse was permitted me. Beacon and Brock were the horses — 

 the latter was the one on whom I was to take the deei- — and 

 Odin was the dog. 



An immense number of people assembled on convenient hills 

 to see the match, the park being opened to the public on that 

 occasion, very good-naturedly, by Mr. Drax. In canvassing the 

 thing and in betting, the difficulty among strangers was laid on 

 the fact of inducing a horse, excited by the chase and in a sweat, to 

 lie down ; but I told all my friends that, so far as the horse went, 

 the match was safe : one of the two things to defeat me would 

 be, either the dog disabling or killing the deer, or being disabled 

 or killed himself. Two facts also militated against me which at 

 first I did not count on, and though aware of them at last, could 



