AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK. 297 
There is no trce so much of the forest as the beech. 
On the verge of woods the oaks are far apart, the ashes 
thin ; the verge is like a wilderness and scrubby, so that 
the forest does not seem to begin till you have penetrated 
some distance. Under the beeches the forest begins at 
once. They stand at the edge of the slope, huge round 
boles rising from the mossy ground, wide fans of branches 
—a shadow under them, a greeny darkness beyond 
’ There is depth there—depth to be explored, depth to © 
hide in. If there is a path, it is arched over like a tunnel 
with boughs ; you know not whither it goes. The fawns 
are sweetest in the sunlight, moving down from the 
shadow ; the doe best partly in shadow, partly in sun, 
when the branch of a tree casts its interlaced work, fine 
as Algerian silverwork, upon the back ; the buck best 
when he stands among the fern, alert, yet not quite. 
alarmed—for he knows the length of his leap—his horns 
up, his neck high, his dark eye bent on you, and every 
sinew strung to spring away. One spot of sunlight, 
bright and white, falls through the branches upon his 
neck, a fatal place, or near it: a guide, that bright white 
spot, to the deadly bullet, as in old days to the cross- 
bow bolt. It was needful even then to be careful of the 
aim, for the herd, as Shakespeare tells us, at once recog- 
nised the sound of a cross-bow: the jar of the string, 
tight-strained to the notch by the goat’s-foot lever, the 
slight whiz of the missile, were enough to startle them 
and to cause the rest to swerve and pass out of range. 
Yet the cross-bow was quiet indeed compared with the 
gun which took its place. The cross-bow was the begin- 
ning of shooting proper, as we now understand it ; that is, 
of taking an aim by the bringing of one point into a line 
‘withanother. With the long-bow aim indeed was taken, 
but quite differently, for if the arrow were kept waiting 
