I advise you to take the opportunity to step into the Park--the
western wicket was ajar when I came hither; I think it will be locked
presently, so you had better make the best of your way--that is, if
you have any curiosity. The venison are coming into season just now,
sir, and there is a pleasure in looking at a hart of grease. I always
think when they are bounding so blithely past, what a pleasure it
would be, to broach their plump haunches on a spit, and to embattle
their breasts in a noble fortification of puff-paste, with plenty of
black pepper."
He said no more, as Kilderkin re-entered with the cordial, but edged
off from Nigel without waiting any reply, only repeating the same look
of intelligence with which he had accosted him.
Nothing makes men's wits so alert as personal danger. Nigel took the
first opportunity which his host's attention to the yeoman of the
royal kitchen permitted, to discharge his reckoning, and readily
obtained a direction to the wicket in question. He found it upon the
latch, as he had been taught to expect; and perceived that it admitted
him to a narrow footpath, which traversed a close and tangled thicket,
designed for the cover of the does and the young fawns. Here he
conjectured it would be proper to wait; nor had he been stationary
above five minutes, when the cook, scalded as much with heat of motion
as ever he had been by his huge fire-place, arrived almost breathless,
and with his pass-key hastily locked the wicket behind him.
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