If he does that, I thought, he will be gone in a minute and I shall lose him, and the hunt will be over.  And for fear he would make for the hedge and jump over it, not minding me, I jerked out my handkerchief and shook it at him.  You can’t imagine how this frightened him.  He turned sharp to the right, dashed up the hill, cleared a hedge and was gone.  I gave a gasp and a scream as I saw him disappear.  I believe I cried, but I didn’t stop, and glad I was that I didn’t; for in less than a minute I had come to a cross lane which led in the very direction the deer had taken.  I turned into this lane and went on as fast as I could, and I soon found that it led through a thick wood.  Down in the hollow, which I could not see into, I heard a barking and shouting, and I kept on just as fast as I could make that tricycle go.  Where the lane led to, or what I should ever come to, I didn’t think about.  I was hunting a stag, and all I cared for was to feel my tricycle bounding beneath me.

I may have gone a half a mile or two miles—­I have not an idea how far it was—­when suddenly I came to a place where there was green grass and rocks in an opening in the woods, and what a sight I saw!  There was that beautiful, grand, red deer half down on his knees and perfectly quiet, and there was one of the men in red coats coming toward him with a great knife in his hand, and a little farther back was three or four dogs with another man, still on horseback, whipping them to keep them back, though they seemed willing enough to lie there with their tongues out, panting.  As the man with the knife came up to the deer, the poor creature raised its eyes to him, and didn’t seem to mind whether he came or not.  It was trembling all over and fairly tired to death.  When the man got near enough he took hold of one of the deer’s horns and lifted up the hand with the knife in it, but he didn’t bring it down on that deer’s throat, I can tell you, madam, for I was there and had him by the arm.

He turned on me as if he had been struck by lightning.

“What do you mean?” he shouted.  “Let go my arm.”

“Don’t you touch that deer,” said I—­my voice was so husky I could hardly speak—­“don’t you see it’s surrendered?  Can you have the heart to cut that beautiful throat when he is pleading for mercy?” The man’s eyes looked as if they would burst out of his head.  He gave me a pull and a push as if he would stick the knife into me, and he actually swore at me, but I didn’t mind that.

[Illustration:  “IF YOU WAS A MAN I’D BREAK YOUR HEAD”]

“You have got that poor creature now,” said I, “and that’s enough.  Keep it and tame it and bring it up with your children.”  I didn’t have time to say anything more, and he didn’t have time to answer, for two of the dogs who had got a little of their wind back sprang up and made a jump at the stag; and he, having got a little of his wind back, jerked his horn out of the hand of the man, and giving a sort of side spring backward among the bushes and rocks, away he went, the dogs after him.