The Forest Read Online Free PDF Page B

growth stages, marked by the size of their antlers, which they cast each spring in order to grow a new and finer set for the next rutting season. After the spikes of the yearling pricket came the little antlers of the two-year-old, the sorel. The next year he became a sore, then a bare buck and then, at five, the proper antlers of the buck appeared. Even now, another two or three years would pass before he was fully grown and his antlers developed into the magnificent crowning set of the great buck.
    Her buck was still young. She did not know where he had come from: for the bucks usually made their way to their rutting stands from home bases in other parts of the Forest. Would he be at the same stand this coming autumn, or would he perhaps be large and strong enough to dislodge the occupant of some more important stand? Why had she especially noticed him? She did not know. She had seen the great bucks with their mighty antlers, their powerful shoulders and swollen necks. Crowds of does clustered eagerly around their stands where the air was thick with the pungent odour they exuded and which made the pale deer almost dizzy. But when she had seen the young buck waiting modestly by the stand, she felt something else. This year his antlers would be bigger, his bodythicker. But his scent would be the same: the sharp but, to her, sweet smell of him. It was to him, when the rutting season came, that she would go. She stared at the treetops in the morning sun and thought of him.
    The terror began suddenly.
    The sound of the hunters came from the west. They were travelling faster than the breeze, which might have carried their scent. They made no attempt to be quiet; they came loudly through the Forest, straight towards the glade.
    The leading doe got up; the others followed her. She began to spring towards the trees. The prickets were still playing at the other side of the glade. For a moment they did not heed the calls of their mothers, but in another instant they, too, realised that something was amiss and began to spring.
    The spring of the fallow deer is an extraordinary sight. It is known as a pronk. All four feet leave the ground while the legs appear to be hanging down straight. They seem to bounce, hover and fly forward through the air as if by magic. Normally they make several of these gravity-defying springs before running only at intervals, to spring again. With a beautiful, magical motion the whole group fled towards the covert. In seconds they had melted from the glade and were strung out in a line behind the senior doe who was leading them north towards the deepest part of the wood.
    They had gone a quarter-mile when she abruptly halted. They did the same. She listened, ears flicking nervously. There was no mistaking it. There were horsemen in front of them. The leader turned, headed south-eastwards, away from both dangers.
    The pale deer was frightened. There was something deliberate, sinister about this double approach. The leader obviously thought so too. They were at full gallop now, leaping over fallen trees, bushes, anything in their path. The dappled light through the leaves above seemed to flicker and flash with menace. Half a mile they went, came to a larger light, broke cover into a long grassy glade. And stopped dead.
    There were about twenty riders, waiting only yards away. The pale deer had just time to notice them before the leading doe turned and made back towards the trees.
    But she made only two springs before realising that therewere more hunters in the trees too. Checked, she turned again and started to run down the glade, darting this way and that, looking for a chance of safety. The rest of the deer, sensing that the leader had no idea what to do, followed her in an increasing state of panic. The hunters were racing behind them now, with whoops and cries. The doe veered right into a belt of trees.
    The pale deer had gone about a hundred yards into the trees when she caught sight of yet more hunters