Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 1 - 1819.djvu/86

76 laid aside her instrument at her father's request that she would attend him in his walk.

A large and well wooded park, or rather chase, stretched along the hill behind the castle, which occupying, as we have noticed, a pass ascending from the plain, seemed built in its very gorge to defend the forest ground which arose behind it in shaggy majesty. Into this romantic region the father and daughter proceeded, arm in arm, by a noble avenue overarched by embowering elms, beneath which groups of the fallow-deer were seen to stray in distant perspective. 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 sylvan sport, was proceeding with his cross-bow over his arm, and a hound led in leash by his boy, into the interior of the wood.