But I saw
them.'
'A sight worth many pairs of plaid trousers?'
'Worth Saint Chrysostom's seven years' nakedness on all-fours! And
so I told the fellow, who by some cunning calculations about wind,
and sun, and so forth, which he imparted to my uncomprehending ears,
brought me suddenly to the top of a little crag, below which, some
hundred yards off, the whole herd stood, stags, hinds--but I can't
describe them. I have not brought away a scrap of sketch, though we
watched them full ten minutes undiscovered; and then the stare, and
the toss of those antlers, and the rush! That broke the spell with
me; for I had been staring stupidly at them, trying in vain to take
in the sight, with the strangest new excitement heaving and boiling
up in my throat; and at the sound of their hoofs on the turf I woke,
and found the keeper staring, not at them, but at me, who, I verily
believe, had something very like a tear in these excitable eyes of
mine.'
'"Ain't you well, sir?" said he. "You needn't be afeard; it's only
at the fall of the year the stags is wicked.
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