The Deer-Park by E.V. Lucas — Read

After too many years I found myself last week once again in the first deer-park I ever saw; and the change was only in me. The same beautiful creatures were there, of the dappled variety, feeding in little groups, standing motionless as a stranger approached, and moving across the open or amid the trees of the avenue with the silent, timid curiousness of their kind. The sun was golden through cracks in the heavy clouds, and the deer's soft dapplings shone in its light, while when they moved in any number they twinkled, glittered, almost smouldered.

Now and then an old stag, with antlers so broad and branching that they seemed not his at all, but a borrowed head-dress assumed almost as if for a charade, would pass with dignity and extreme deliberation from one group to another; now and then a fawn would trot up to its mother on legs of such slender delicacy that their serviceableness for anything but the most exquisite decoration seemed impossible; and twice there were royal battles between young stags, whose horns met in a terrifying clash and clatter like spears on shields.