CHAPTER XVI 



" I sat me down on the centre hill, 



Where the four rides make a star ; 

 A buck brows'd there I wish'd to kill 



Ere the season wan'd too far. 

 Frisk'd forth the rabbit to the sward ; 



But he stamp'd at a fox iu cover ; 

 The fox stole out, and star'd me hard 



Ere he sprung on the drain bank-over ; 

 Tlirough the thick thorns he took his way, 

 Mark'd for a space by the screaming jay. 



Her top-knot rais'd at the prowling ghost. 



As she view'd him from her fir-tree roost." 



The Last of the New Forest Deer.—G. F. B. 



Turning fi-om sadder tilings, the reader shall now have some 

 account of my sport in the forest. My fii-st act after receiving 

 the forest licence to shoot, was to ask the several rangers — 

 Mr. Sturges Bourne and the Duke of Cambridge — if I might 

 hunt the otter and coui-se hares in the forest. Having received 

 permission from each in succession, I resolved to have a touch 

 at the otters, and I wrote to my old servant, George Carter, 

 then with the Duke of Grafton, for any old worn-out and steady 

 hounds. He sent me some, and wrote to say that my old 

 favourite foxhound Harrogate, if I liked it, should accompany 

 them, as he had no longer any use to put him to. Harrogate 

 and I had not met for years, but the meeting at Beacon was 

 just as joyful as if we had been severed but for a day. His 

 joy affected the other hounds who came with him, who, seeing 

 him so delighted, at once fawned upon me, and came bounding 



