last midsummer, when we couldn't get the beasts to swim the lake.
There's a pretty mess come o' that, by-the-by; for, out of the talk
there was among the gentlemen about that difficulty, the Squire laid a
bet as _he_ would drive stags; not as _we_ do, mind you, but in harness,
like carriage-horses; and, cuss me, if he hasn't had the break out half
a dozen times with four red deer in it, and you may see him tearing
through the park, with mounted grooms and keepers on the right and left
of him, all galloping their hardest, and the Squire with the ribbons,
a-holloaing like mad! For my part, I don't like such pranks, and would
much sooner not be there to see 'em. There will be mischief some day
with it yet, for all that old Lord Orford, down at Newmarket some fifty
years ago, used to do the same thing, they say. It ain't in nature that
stags should be druv four-in-hand, even by Carew. However, the Squire
won his wager; and we haven't seen none o' _that_ wild work o' late
weeks, though we may see it again any day."

"I have heard of that strange exploit," observed Yorke; "but as driving
deer, even in the ordinary way, is not my calling, and as I am no great
rider, even if I had a horse, I don't see how I am to introduce myself
to your mad Squire, and yet I have a great fancy for his acquaintance.
Do you think he'd buy any of these drawings, taken in his own park, from
his own timber?" The young man touched a portfolio, already well stocked
with studies of oak and beech. "Here is a sketch of the Decoy Pond, for
instance, with the oldest tree in the chase beside it; would not that
interest him, think you? You think not?"

"Well, young gentleman," said the keeper, frankly, "if I say no, it
ain't that I mean any slight to your drawing. It's like the tree enough,
for certain, with the very hoop of iron as I put round it with my own
hands twenty years ago--and, by the same token, it will want another