She turned to the road again and followed it,
because it enclosed the park and she wanted to see more of its evident
beauty. It was very beautiful. As she walked on she saw it rolled into
woods and deeps filled with bracken; she saw stretches of hillocky,
fine-grassed rabbit warren, and hollows holding shadowy pools; she
caught the gleam of a lake with swans sailing slowly upon it with curved
necks; there were wonderful lights and wonderful shadows, and brooding
stillness, which made her footfall upon the road a too material thing.
Suddenly she heard a stirring in the bracken a yard or two away from
her. Something was moving slowly among the waving masses of huge fronds
and caused them to sway to and fro. It was an antlered stag who rose
from his bed in the midst of them, and with majestic deliberation
got upon his feet and stood gazing at her with a calmness of pose
so splendid, and a liquid darkness and lustre of eye so stilly and
fearlessly beautiful, that she caught her breath. He simply gazed as her
as a great king might gaze at an intruder, scarcely deigning wonder.
As she had passed on her way, Betty had seen that the enclosing park
palings were decaying, covered with lichen and falling at intervals.
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