George Manville Fenn

Nat the Naturalist George Manville Fenn

Book Excerpt: ...etween two rows of terrible thorny trees that bore sweet juicy berries in the season, but which were of the wildest nature now, till I could get a good aim at the monster's shoulder, and see its soft lithe tail twining and writhing like a snake. I crept on, full of excitement, for a leafy plant that I refused to own as a cabbage no longer intercepted my view. Then lying flat upon my chest I fitted an arrow to my bow, and was cautiously taking aim, telling myself that if I missed I should be seized by the monster, when some slight sound I made caused it to spring up, presenting its striped flank for a target as it gazed here and there. Play as it was, it was all intensely real to me; and in those moments I was as full of excitement as if I had been in some distant land and in peril of my life. Then, after long and careful aim, twang went the bow, and to my intense delight the soft-headed arrow struck the monster full in the flank, making it bound up a couple of feet and then pounce upon th...