THE SPIRIT OF THE WOOD. 1838 
rapiers. An incarnation of grace and the 
beauty of harmony. Of large, soft eyes, like 
very lakes of tenderness ; of silken, damp nos- 
trils; of sleek sides and polished velvet coat, 
more glossed than was ever coat of valuable 
racehorse—surely the very spirit of the woods. 
And so he was—a full-grown roebuck, prince 
of the shades. 
Then a bound, light and effortless as the 
flight of thistledown, and he was gone. And 
all the time there had not been a single sound, 
not a rustle of a leaf; only the tap-tapping of 
the woodpecker. 
Came then a pattering, echoing in that lake 
of stillness, and approaching rapidly, and a 
dog appeared. On the littered floor of the 
wood the dog, unlike the roe, could not move 
soundlessly. 
In the middle of the glade the dog stopped 
dead, flung up her tail, and lowered her head. 
She had scented the roe; found where he had 
stood. 
But the scent did not ‘lead’ away, as do 
most scents. The buck had bounded, you 
remember. It was necessary to ‘cast’ around 
to pick up the trail. The dog did so cleverly, 
and picking up the true trail at last, hunted 
it away into the dim, blue silence of the wood. 
The pattering of the feet died out, and, 
