unds as
they all opened on a view together! Fiercer and wilder grew the hubbub!
And now the eager watcher might hear the brushwood torn in all
directions by the impetuous passage of the wild deer and his inveterate
pursuers.

"Now, then, it is old Tom's chance, or ours," he thought, "for he will
not try Forester again, I warrant him, and we are all down wind of him--
so he can't judge of our whereabouts."

In another second the bushes crashed to his left hand, and behind him,
while the dogs were raving scarcely a pistol-shot off, in the tangled
swamp. Yet he well knew that if the stag should break there it would be
A---'s shot, and, though anxious, he kept his eye fixed steadily on his
own point, holding his good piece cocked and ready.

"Mark! Harry, mark him!"--a loud yell from the Commodore.

The stag had broken midway between them, in full sight of A---, and
seeing him, had wheeled off to the right. He was now sweeping onward
across the open field with high graceful bounds, tossing his antlered
head aloft, as if already safe, and little hurt, if anything, by Jem
Lyn's boasted shot of the last evening. The gray stood motionless,
trembling, however, palpably, in every limb, with eagerness--his ears
laid flat upon his neck, and cowering a little, as if he feared the
shot, which it would seem his instinct told him to expect. Harry had
dropped his reins once more, and leveled his unerring rifle--yet for a
moment's space he paused, waiting for A--- to fire; there was no hurry
for himself, nay a few seconds more would give him a yet fairer shot,
for the buck now was running partially toward him, so that a moment more
would place him broadside on, and within twenty paces.

"Bang!" came the full and round report of A---'s large shotgun, fired
before the beast was fifteen yards away from him. He had aimed at the
head, as he was forced to do, lest he should spoil the haunches, for he
was running now directly from him--and had the buck been fifty paces off
he would have killed him dead, lodging his whole charge, or the best
part of it, in the junction of the neck and skull--but as it was, the
cartridge--the green cartridge--had not yet spread at all; nor had one
buckshot left the case! Whistling like a single ball, as it passed
Harry's front eight or nine yards off, it drove, as his quick eye
discovered, clean through the stag's right ear, almost dissevering it,
and making the animal bound six feet off the green sward.