There
are a few deer, too, in the hills, though they are getting scarce of
late years. There, from that headland, I killed one, three summers
since; I was placed at a stand by the lake's edge, and the dogs drove
him right down to me; but I got too eager, and he heard or saw me, and
so fetched a turn; but they were close upon him, and the day was hot,
and he was forced to soil. I never saw him till he was in the act of
leaping from a bluff of ten or twelve feet into the deep lake, but I
pitched up my rifle at him, a snap shot! as I would my gun at a cock in
a summer brake, and by good luck sent my ball through his heart. There
is a finer view yet when we cross this hill, the Bellevale mountain;
look out, for we are just upon it; there! Now admire!"
And on the summit he pulled up, and never did I see a landscape more
extensively magnificent. Ridge after ridge the mountain sloped down from
our feet into a vast rich basin ten miles at least in breadth, by
thirty, if not more, in length, girdled on every side by mountains--the
whole diversified with wood and water, meadow, and pasture-land, and
corn-field--studded with small white villages--with more than one bright
lakelet glittering like beaten gold in the declining sun, and several
isolated hills standing up boldly from the vale!
"Glorious indeed! Most glorious!" I exclaimed.
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