Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
the world during the day in the heat of summer, the red-deer
and roe made their secret haunt, concealed behind the deep dim
veil of leaves, unseen and unsuspected in the cool hollows of
the cliff. The prying eye might search the craig from below,
and the beaters or the woodmen might whistle, and whoop, and
shout above, but nothing appeared or moved except the gray
falcon, which rose channering out of the rifts. Above the craig
the wooded bank was so abrupt, that to the front view there
was no indication of a slope, and any who passed quickly over
the brow was immediately out of sight. At each descent beyond
the extremities of the whole range of rocks there was a common
roe's run and pass, which was supposed to be 'deadly sure' if
the deer took the path, since the precipice below was believed
to be an infallible barrier against any intermediate escape.
Often, however, when pressed upon the terrace above, the deer
neither went through the passes nor turned against the beaters,
but vanished as if by magic--nobody could tell where; and it
was the common opinion of the drivers and fishermen, that, when
forced near the river, they threw themselves over the craigs
'for spite,'--a belief often confirmed by old Davie Simpson, who
declared that he had often found their bodies beneath the rocks,
and in the Cluach, the Clerk's Pool, and the 'Furling Hole.' He
did not, however, relate what _wounds_ they had, and the truth
was, that those which disappeared at the brow of the Ledanreich
dashed down the sudden dip of the bank between the precipices,
and, turning through the ivy corridors, went out through the
copse galleries upon the other side, and either descended to the
water or skirted below the pass, and went back into the forest.
Those which were found dead were such as had been mortally
wounded at some in-wood pass, and, unable to take, or cross
the water, had died on the beach, or been carried down by the
river. In the same mysterious passages which gave concealment
and escape to the stags and bucks, the does were used to lay
with their kids, and from thence at morning and evening they
brought them out to pluck the tender grass upon the green banks
beyond. Often from the brow above, or from behind the ivy
screen, we have watched their 'red garment' stealing through the
boughs, followed by their little pair drawing their slender legs
daintily through the wet dew, and turning their large velvet
ears to catch every passing sound upon the breeze as it brought
the hum of the water, or the crow of the distant cock--now
trotting before, now lingering behind their dam, now nestling
together, now starting off as the gale suddenly rustled the
leaves behind them--then listening and re-uniting in a timorous
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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