262 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



towards me, so close that not even a head was fair without en- 

 dangering other deer. I lay for at least half an hour, in the 

 hope that some would rise and feed ; but not a deer stirred. 

 Seeing them so quiet I moved on again, and this time so far 

 that, before raising my head, the deer being forward for the 

 time of year, I could smell them. I now took off the handker- 

 chief that I had wrapped round the lock of my lifle, and put on 

 a fresh cap, lying on my side to do it, and I did not look at the 

 deer again till I had recovered my breath and any little excite- 

 ment of the heart the position and nerve had occasioned. When 

 I peeped up I found myself scarce thirty yards from the deer, 

 with seven or eight old bucks next me lying close together. I 

 was cool by that time, and, in fact, getting cold, wet tln-ough as 

 if I had swam the distance. Too close to attempt to raise 

 them with my voice, I lay watching them, and at last perceived 

 that one of the oldest heads among them never stirred anything 

 but its ears, never rested along the ground, and never turned 

 either way to knock off the flies. I had plenty of time in which 

 to mark tliis peculiarity, and I fixed my eyes on the head to 

 know the reason why. At last I could see a dark spot below 

 the left ear in the neck, and satisfied myself that the deer I 

 looked at had been hit by a ball. He might have wasted and 

 not be the best deer. I could in that position judge nothing of 

 the venison, but, thinking that he would get worse, my duty to 

 the Crown made me resolve to kill him. "Waiting, therefore, a 

 long time for the other heads to go this way and that way at 

 the flies, or to stretch out to rest on the grass, an opportunity 

 arrived, and I fired. Up sprang the herd. My ear told me it 

 was all right ; and, as deer will at times do when so suddenly 

 scared, they ran, and then paused for a moment at a distance of 

 a hundred yards, when one of their number reeled among them, 

 gave a violent spring, and crashed to the ground, ploughing up 

 the turf with his horns ; away went the herd, and I hastened up 

 to give the coup-dc-grace. The buck was dead when I arrived, 

 for the ball had struck above the old wound, nearer the horn in 

 a more deadly place, and had settled the matter. He was a 



