The man with the knife rushed out into the lane, and so did I, and so did the man on horseback, almost on top of me.  On the other side of the lane was a little gorge with rocks and trees and water at the bottom of it, and I was just in time to see the stag spring over the lane and drop out of sight among the rocks and the moss and the vines.

The man stood and swore at me regardless of my sex, so violent was his rage.

“If you was a man I’d break your head,” he yelled.

“I’m glad I’m not,” said I, “for I wouldn’t want my head broken.  But what troubles me is, that I’m afraid that deer has broken his legs or hurt himself some way, for I never saw anything drop on rocks in such a reckless manner, and the poor thing so tired.”

The man swore again, and said something about wishing somebody else’s legs had been broken; and then he shouted to the man on horseback to call off the dogs, which was of no use, for he was doing it already.  Then he turned on me again.

“You are an American,” he shouted.  “I might have known that.  No English woman would ever have done such a beastly thing as that.”

“You’re mistaken there,” I said; “there isn’t a true English woman that lives who would not have done the same thing.  Your mother—­”

“Confound my mother!” yelled the man.

“All right,” said I; “that’s all in your family and none of my business.”  Then he went off raging to where he had left his horse by a gatepost.

The other man, who was a good deal younger and more friendly, came up to me and said he wouldn’t like to be in my boots, for I had spoiled a pretty piece of sport; and then he went on and told me that it had been a bad hunt, for instead of starting only one stag, three or four of them had been started, and they had had a bad time, for the hounds and the hunters had been mixed up in a nasty way.  And at last, when the master of the hounds and most every one else had gone off over Dunkery Hill, and he didn’t know whether they was after two stags or one, he and his mate, who was both whippers-in, had gone to turn part of the pack that had broken away, and had found that these dogs was after another stag, and so before they knew it they was in a hunt of their own, and they would have killed that stag if it had not been for me; and he said it was hard on his mate, for he knew he had it in mind that he was going to kill the only stag of the day.

He went on to say, that as for himself he wasn’t so sorry, for this was Sir Skiddery Henchball’s land, and when a stag was killed it belonged to the man whose land it died on.  He told me that the master of the hunt gets the head and the antlers, and the huntsman some other part, which I forget, but the owner of the land, no matter whether he’s in the hunt or not, gets the body of the stag.  “There’s a cottage not a mile down this lane,” said he, “with its thatch torn off, and my sister and her children live there, and Sir Skiddery turned them out on account of the rent, and so I’m glad the old skinflint didn’t get the venison.”  And then he went off, being called by the other man.