As they paced slowly on, admiring the different points of view, for which Sir William Ashton, notwithstanding the nature of his usual avocations, had considerable taste and feeling, they were overtaken by the forester, or park-keeper, who, intent on silvan sport, was proceeding with his crossbow over his arm, and a hound led in leash by his boy, into the interior of the wood.
"Going to shoot us a piece of venison, Norman ?" said his master, as he returned the woodsman's salutation.
"Saul, your honour, and that I am.

Will it please you to see the sport ?" "Oh no," said his lordship, after looking at his daughter, whose colour fled at the idea of seeing the deer shot, although, had her father expressed his wish that they should accompany Norman, it was probable she would not even have hinted her reluctance.
The forester shrugged his shoulders.

"It was a disheartening thing," he said, "when none of the gentles came down to see the sport.

He hoped Captain Sholto would be soon hame, or he might shut up his shop entirely; for Mr.Harry was kept sae close wi' his Latin nonsense that, though his will was very gude to be in the wood from morning till night, there would be a hopeful lad lost, and no making a man of him.

It was not so, he had heard, in Lord Ravenswood's time: when a buck was to be killed, man and mother's son ran to see; and when the deer fell, the knife was always presented to the knight, and he never gave less than a dollar for the compliment.