ttom he had had to leap a tiny stream. Then,
walking slowly, he climbed the steeper slope; and there was a double
astonishment for a moment, the boy staring hard at a noble-looking stag,
the avant-guard of a little herd of red deer, which was grazing in the
hollow below.

The boy came so suddenly upon the stag, that the great fellow stood at
gaze, his branching antlers spreading wide. Then there was a rush, and
the little herd was off at full speed, bucks, does, and fawns, seeming
almost to fly, till they disappeared over a ridge.

"That's the way!" said the lad. "Now, if Scar and I had been out with
our bows, we might have walked all day and never seen a horn."

As the lad trudged on, munching apples and breaking out from time to
time into scraps of song, the surroundings of his walk changed, for he
passed over a rough stone wall, provided with projections to act as a
stile, and left the moorland behind, to enter upon a lovely park-like
expanse, dotted with grand oaks and firs, among which he had not
journeyed long before, surrounded on three sides by trees, he came in
full sight of the fine-looking, ruddy stone hall, glimpses of which he
had before seen, while its windows and a wide-spreading lake in front
flashed in the bright sunshine.

"Whoa hoo! whoa hoo! Drop it! Hoi!" shouted the boy; but the object
addressed, a great grey heron, paid no heed, but went flapping slowly
away on its widespread wings, its long legs stretched straight out
behind to act as balance, and a small eel writhing and twisting itself
into knots as it strove in vain to escape from the scissor-like bill.

"That's where the eels go," muttered the boy, as he hurried on,
descending till he reached the shores of the lake, and then skirting it,
with eyes searching its sunlit depths, to see here some golden-bronze
pike half-hidden among lily leaves, shoals of roach flashing their
silver sides in the shallows, and among the denser growth of weeds
broad-backed carp basking in the hot sunshine, and at times lazily
rolling over to display their golden sides.

"Oh yes, you're big and old enough, but you don't half bite. I'd rather
have a day at our moat any time than here, proud as old Scar is of his
big pond."

As the lad reached the head of the lake, where the brown, clear waters
of a rocky stream drained into it from the moor above, he caught sight
of a few small trout, and, after crossing a little rough stone bridge,
startled a couple of