nother year came (for the years, as you will find out to your cost
some day, fly away much faster as one grows older) and he had shed his
old horns and grown his new pair, he carried on each horn, brow, bay
and trey, with two on top on one side and upright on the other, or
nine points in all.

Now towards the end of that summer a great big Stag came up to him and
said, "My fine young fellow, it is time that you had nothing more to
do with hinds and young things; you must come and be my squire." Now
our Deer thought it a great compliment to be noticed by so splendid an
old fellow, and went with him gladly enough. The pair of them were
constantly together for several weeks; and our Deer found it not
unpleasant, for the old Stag knew of all the best feeding grounds,
and, though he took all the best of the food for himself, left plenty
and to spare for the squire. But it was a shame to see how wasteful
this greedy old fellow was. For if they went into a turnip-field he
would only take a single bite out of a turnip, worry it out of the
ground, and go on to another; while often he would pick up scores of
roots and throw them over his head, from mere mischief and pride in
the strength of his neck. Again, in the corn-fields he was so dainty
that he would not take a whole ear of corn, but would bite off half of
it and leave the rest to spoil. Now a hind, as our Deer knew from
observing his mother, is far more thrifty. She will take four or five
bites out of a turnip before she pulls it out of the ground and leaves
it, and she takes the whole of an ear of corn instead of half. But I
am sorry to say that our young Deer took example from the great Stag,
and soon became as wasteful and mischievous as he was in his feeding;
and indeed I never saw nor heard of a stag that had not learned this
very bad habit.

The only occasions on which the old Stag did not keep his squire with
him was when he went to lie down in the covert for the day after
feeding. The lazy old fellow was very particular about his bed, and
was aware of all kinds of quiet places in the cliffs, where he knew
that the hounds would be unlikely to find him. Or sometimes he would
tell his squire to stop for a minute, and then he would make a
gigantic bound of twenty feet or more into the midst of some dense
thicket, and say to him quietly: "Now I am quite comfortable. Do you
go on and lie down by yourself; but don't go too far, and keep to
windward of me, so that I can