THE SUBSTITUTE. 
59 
land such niy aspirations. All 
then for a time remained silent ; 
and I settled in my own mind 
that a fox had disturbed the black- 
bird. Hark ! again, the gentle 
rustle of a bough ; and presently 
the sharp shake of its leafy end, 
as if a buck, whose horns were 
forward and hardened, had hit a 
twig beyond the reach of his 
imouth, to bring its verdure tower 
down, that he may browse upon 
it. A dead silence, a little rustle, 
and a shake again on the same 
spot, just at the corner of the open 
forest, but still quite within the 
cover. “ It must be the buck, and 
can be nothing else.” A bough 
jf the copse wood then leaned to- 
ward and into the woodland glade, 
but flew back; it had evidently 
bent down from some pressure 
from within. “Its the buck; so 
here goes!” Cautiously and 
steadily, with stealthy motion, 
avoiding all jerk or sudden move- 
.ment, the rifle rose to my eye, and 
kept its level at the spot where 
every instant I expected to see the 
buck’s head. The bough bent 
iagain,the leaves rustled still more, 
land in the same place. “It can 
only be the buck at browse; and 
now I have the view.” A dull 
^surface appears in the middle of 
the bush, the hue of a deer’s neck, 
land it moves up and down; yet 
;^perverseness personified) I can 
neither see ears, nor horns, nor 
eye, nor anything to guide me to 
spine or brain. Shall I shoot at a 
venture ? Caution, from long ex- 
perience, as well as habit, whis- 
pered “No.” “Well,” I thought 
to myself, “ I have seen old 
"women select the moment when 
ihor.ses are coming in to cross a 
rracecourse : I have seen, man, 
(woman, and child, where you 
least expect to find them ; and 
though I know this can’t be any- 
thing but a buck, for the love of 
heaven I will not pull the trig- 
ger.” “Now for bis heart!” and 
I dared hardly breathe, lest my 
finger should touch the light trig- 
ger. The boughs then burst wide, 
and out eame a buck — an old 
buck too — but such a buck, that I 
would rather have died than have 
made venison of! Il was a man 
—a benign-looking brisk old man, 
in a dun-coloured wide-awake hat, 
and drabbish dress all over, in 
Pickwickian cut and fashion, even 
to shorts and ankle-gaiters, wliich 
only just met his very well-made 
calves. 
“ Good God, sir,” I exclaimed, 
bursting out of the bushes on his 
startled view, “you very nearly 
lost your life, and beguiled me into 
murder.” 
“ Sir,” exclaimed the elderly 
gentleman, in no small alarm, 
“ why, how and w’herefore so?” 
“Sini])ly thus; you have been 
personating a buck in and about 
the bush so long, that my arm has 
been aching in holding my rifle at 
the level of your body, the trigger 
so light that had I sneezed I must 
have shot you.” 
“ Dear me, sir,” he replied. “ I 
will instantly betake myself out of 
harm’s way,” and, so saying, dis- 
appeared round the corner, and 
left me most thankful that I had 
done no murder. 
My search for the buck that 
evening was useless ; and on meet- 
ing the keeper at a given spot I 
asked him who this old gentleman 
was. 
“ A Flapper,” he replied, in the 
most business-like and concise 
way. 
“ A Flapper !” I rejoined in as- 
