80 DAYS OF DEER- STALKING. 



case be impatient, but rather imitate the discreet Fabius. 

 He would have been a capital hand at a quiet shot." 



" Aye, and a capital proser too. But will you not give 

 me leave to imitate you, my incomprehensible master, who 

 have been fidgetting about, looking at your watch, taking 

 up your rifles, and putting them down again a hundred 

 times, and are as restless as a hyaena in a cage ? A pretty 

 sort of Fabius you are yourself." 



" No, no, never mind me ; it's only a way I have : or 

 perhaps I consider patience as King Charles did morality: 

 he loved it, he said, though he did not practise it. But I 



would advise you to . By the powers ! I see him 



now ; he is sitting down above the deer, and examining 

 them with his glass. What a capital fellow ; he has not 

 been more than half an hour. Now he is looking at us for 

 a signal : open your waistcoat, and show your shirt, Peter. 

 He sees it : now he is going forward behind the hill, and 

 will soon start them." 



" Lightfoot, come you here, and observe the beautiful 

 motions of these animals, which to me are as entertaining 

 as any part of the sport ; but should the deer come near 

 us, pray be mute as a fish, and as quiet as the most 

 magnanimous mouse ; keeping your hair smoothed down 

 like unto those fair nymphs at Portsmouth, beloved of the 

 sailors, who comb it straight in front, and cut it to the pat- 

 tern of a bowl-dish." 



" Now, take my glass one of Dolland's best, it is stay, 

 I will direct it to the proper spot : look intently keep the 

 glass as steady as possible and when the deer are in mo- 

 tion, and group together, you will be sure to distinguish 

 them, though they are not so easily seen at present." 



" Now, indeed, I do actually see them ; what beautiful 

 creatures 1 They are all standing up, and gazing at the 

 summit of the hill. How stately the stags look with their 

 jutting necks and towering antlers. Are you sure they are 

 not elks '/ Gad, I think they are. How they are moving 

 forward to the hind in advance, which you seem to have 

 such an antipathy to. What in the world makes them shift 

 their quarters ? " 



" Why, Maclaren is nearly opposite to them, but at a 



