“That was a fine covey,” said the first gun to his neighbour at ten o’clock on the morning of the 12th. “A dozen in all, and we got six. How odd; last year you bagged the leader with your first shot just as you’ve done now. What is it, Donald? Yes, that’s odd, this old cock bird must have been hit twice last season. Two toes gone from left leg and mark of shot above left eye. Well, put them in. If we go on like this we will have a good bag.”
THE ROEBUCK
With the beginning of June, full leaf came to the plantation, but never a human foot disturbed the fresh thick undergrowth, and save for the subdued note of birds the silence was complete. Above the woodland the pines towered along the side of rising ground that led to the more abrupt hills in whose corries the red deer were to be found; below the woodland the arable lands began, and stretched in rich and plenteous growth to the inhabited districts.
The corn was young and green, and the farmers had no work to do within its area. So the doe that had left her mate and the little party with which she travelled, in the third week of May, felt happily secure in the hiding-place she had chosen, a secluded spot amid thick bracken, and very early in June two little fawns were born to her. They were pretty babies with coats lighter than their mother’s summer dress, and marked with white spots that did not remain very long. Their mother watched over them with most anxious and affectionate care, and until they were weaned could not bear them out of her sight for a moment. In the days of their utter helplessness she did not leave the wood at all, and the first walks abroad seemed to fill her with anxiety.
At the beginning of July, when the fawns were able to frisk about in prettiest fashion, happily ignorant of the element in life called danger, Donald’s retriever pup, making a little journey of discovery, came quite by chance into the wood. It was quite a puppy, without any definite ideas of a proper function in life, and no desire to do more than play with strange animals, but the mother of the little ones was very frightened, and could not fathom its intentions. She called upon her babies to lie down in the thick fern, and then made her way to the puppy.
Had she possessed horns it might have gone ill with the intruder, as it was she managed to kick him very severely, and he fled from the wood howling. After this alarm the doe redoubled her precautions, and very often would stop feeding to stand with one fore-leg raised and listen intently to some sound coming from far away. Towards the end of the month the return of her errant husband lightened her anxieties.
The Roebuck came jauntily into the wood and offered no excuse or explanation for his two months’ absence. He was quite a handsome fellow with about nine inches of antlers bearing the backward and forward tine that mark the complete development of what our forefathers called the “fair roebuck”. From the shoulder he stood about two feet two inches, from nose to the end of his short tail he was about four feet long; his head was short, his eyes were large, and there were black and white markings on his lips. His coat was the light reddish-brown of summer, and his conspicuous white patch gave an effective contrast to it. He was very well pleased with the children his wife had brought him, and expressed his satisfaction in a series of short, sharp barks.
The family stayed in the wood for a brief time, living on grasses and ivy and the fresh growth of young trees, to which the fawns soon learned to help themselves, as they cared more for leaves than grass; but the pleasure of the season was quite spoilt by the flies. The wood was full of them, and they bit and worried the fawns until life became a burden.
“We must go up into the hills,” said the Roebuck decisively; “it is our only chance of escape from this trouble. Midges can’t climb so far.”