CHAPTER XIX 



" The doe press'd to me, as the wild thing comes 

 When hard-brow'd winter drives it to our doors, 

 And gentle, timid creatures seelc our homes 



From forest depths and unfrequented moors. 

 I raised her face, and Ivissed it with delight ; 



Her eyes the stars tliat bless'd the silent night ; 

 Then, as we parted, still to meet again. 

 My soul confess'd a deep, sad sense of pain." 



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



Although the sport is magnificently fine and wild in this lovely 

 forest, there is a melancholy feeling attached to the destruction 

 of the deer, that strikes the mind, particularly in many of its 

 most beautiful shades, when, underneath the spreading trees that 

 bend over its amber streams, the deer-himter sees impressed, yo;- 

 the last time, on the moist gromid, the footsteps of the last doe 

 and fa^vn that shall ever mirror in or drink of its waters again. 

 It was said of Robin Hood that, outlaw as he was, he would 

 rather fast than kill a doe ; and I confess that I hate to lay the 

 rifle in rest on a doe that is out of season. It must be done, 

 however, and I try to stifle disinclination with the knowledge, 

 that, perhaps if I did not kill the doe, her sufferings would be 

 prolonged by some unskilful hand. Yesterday, the 10th of 

 August 1853, in Boldrewood Walk, while attending on Di-uid, 

 tracing where a deer had been in the night in Holiday Hill 

 enclosm-e, having entered fi-om Home Hill at a gap in the 

 palings, in which latter place the keepers had been with their 

 hounds the preceding day, my man suddenly put to me the 



