When the frost gave, the stags were more than
usually cunning, and were helped by more than their usual share of luck.
One fine stag charged the toils at best pace, and, happening to hit a
rotten net, burst through, and went off shaking his antlers as proudly as
if he had upset a rival in a charge. Another took to the lake, and after
playing Robinson Crusoe on the island for some time, swam across to the
wood, took a standing leap out of the shallow water on the brink over the
paling, and laid up in Penn Wood.
It was on a lovely mellow January morning, after just a touch of frost,
with haze and mist veiling the distant woods, a winter sun struggling to
make itself seen, and all the birds, from the mallards on the lakes to the
jackdaws in the old oaks, beginning to talk, but with their minds not
quite made up as to whether they should take a morning flight or stop
where they were, when the business of setting up the toils began.
This, which is probably managed in exactly the same way as when Queen Dido
arranged to give a day's sport to good Aeneas, is carried out according to
the ancient and unvarying tradition of this royal and ancient park.
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