park-keeper, who, intent on silvan sport, was proceeding with his
crossbow over his arm, and a hound led in leash by his boy, into the
interior of the wood.

"Going to shoot us a piece of venison, Norman?" said his master, as he
returned the woodsman's salutation.

"Saul, your honour, and that I am. Will it please you to see the sport?"

"Oh no," said his lordship, after looking at his daughter, whose colour
fled at the idea of seeing the deer shot, although, had her father
expressed his wish that they should accompany Norman, it was probable
she would not even have hinted her reluctance.

The forester shrugged his shoulders. "It was a disheartening thing,"
he said, "when none of the gentles came down to see the sport. He
hoped Captain Sholto would be soon hame, or he might shut up his shop
entirely; for Mr. Harry was kept sae close wi' his Latin nonsense that,
though his will was very gude to be in the wood from morning till night,
there would be a hopeful lad lost, and no making a man of him. It was
not so, he had heard, in Lord Ravenswood's time: when a buck was to be
killed, man and mother's son ran to see; and when the deer fell, the
knife was always presented to the knight, and he never gave less than
a dollar for the compliment. And there was Edgar Ravenswood--Master of
Ravenswood that is now--when he goes up to the wood--there hasna been a
better hunter since Tristrem's time--when Sir Edgar hauds out, down goes
the deer, faith. But we hae lost a' sense of woodcraft on this side of
the hill."

There was much in this harangue highly displeasing to the Lord Keeper's
feelings; he could not help observing that his menial despised him
almost avowedly for not possessing that taste for sport which in those
times was deemed the natural and indispensable attribute of a real
gentleman. But the master of the game is, in all country houses, a man
of great importance, and entitled to use considerable freedom of speech.
Sir William, therefore, only smiled and replied, "He had something else
to think upon to-day than killing deer"; meantime, taking out his purse,
he gave the ranger a dollar for his encouragement. The fellow received
it as the waiter of a fashionable hotel receives double his proper fee
from the hands of a country gentleman--that is, with a smile, in which
pleasure at the gift is mingled with contempt for the ignorance of the
donor. "Your honour is the bad paymaster," he said, "who pays before it
is done.