AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK. 305 
from the hawthorn to the bramble, thence to the rose 
and the grass, gives to the vista of the broad patha soft, 
graceful aspect. 
After the fawns had disappeared, the squire wentonand 
entered under the beeches from which they had emerged. 
He had not gone far before’ he struck and followed a 
path which wound between the beech trunks and was 
entirely arched over by their branches. Squirrels raced 
away at the sound of his footsteps, darting over the 
ground and up the stems of the trees in an instant. A 
slight rustling now and then showed that a rabbit had 
been startled. Pheasants ran too, but noiselessly, and 
pigeons rose from the boughs above. The wood- 
pigeons rose indeed, but they were not much frightened, 
and quickly settled again. So little shot at, they felt 
safe, and only moved from habit. 
He crossed several paths leading in various directions, 
but went on, gradually descending till the gable end of 
a farmhouse became visible through the foliage. The 
old red tiles were but a few yards distant from the 
boughs of the last beech, and there was nothing be- 
tween the house and the forest but a shallow trench 
almost filled with dead brown leaves and edged with 
fern. Out from that trench, sometimes stealthily slipping 
between the flattened’ fern-stalks, came a weasel, and, 
running through the plantains and fringe-like mayweed 
or stray pimpernel which covered the neglected ground, 
made for the straw-rick. Searching about for mice, he 
was certain to come across a hen’s egg in some corner, 
perhaps in a hay-crib, which the cattle, now being in 
the meadow, did not use. Or a stronger stoat crept out 
and attacked anything that he fancied. Very often 
there was a rabbit sitting in the long grass which grows 
round under an old hay-rick. He would sit still and let 
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