The object of these seats was for our personal safety, but I as a sportsman saw at once that to be up a tree was not only advantageous in that respect, but also that we should be much more invisible, hidden among the branches of a tree, than by being stationed on the ground.

So we mounted our trees, and the beaters went into the woods some half a mile from us.

I never heard such a row as they made when they began the drive; they beat drums, fired guns, rang bells, and it was evident to me that no wild beast would hold to his lair under such a torrent of abuse.

I found the words they were using were curses on the wild boar.

I saw two or three fallow deer glide past me, with their usual ghostlike silence, and shortly afterwards the woods very near me seemed to shake with something coming.