THE GENIUS AND THE JACKASS. f)4<7 



for the moment, he vowed warfare against all the world. He he 

 slackened his pace ; he did not breathe so heavily ; he turned his 

 head he cleared his mouth of the burning saliva he coughed ! It 

 was an alarming moment ; it seemed to grow darker the hedge of 

 blackthorn and alders seemed to shoot up higher, and impart strange, 

 half-articulated sounds to their motion, as the night airs, like 

 snakes, crept about the branches. There again Silvio stood still 

 and gasped ! He was now assured it was no fantasy ; he heard the 

 distinct rattling of iron yet he saw no one heard no foot fall ; 

 but still the iron rattled and rattled. What a thousand images of 

 terror came upon him ! His very poetic feeling became his assailant, 

 traitorously turning upon him instruments of torture : for what he 

 knew, he was near the haunt of demons some mysterious fiend might 

 be working about him a diabolic spell. He tried to speak, but his 

 throat felt lined with husk again the sound approached him again, 

 again he rushed forward, like one possessed, and, with a loud 

 shriek, fell ! 



Peter Griffiths, though soemwhat twitted at the unceremonious de- 

 parture of Silvio, was not quite at ease about the enthusiast yet he 

 determined to go to bed : Mrs. Griffiths had already entered into her 

 first sleep. He thought he would see the bolts and bars in their 

 proper places, and then then his resolves vanished, for he lighted 

 the taper in his lantern, and sallied out in quest of Silvio. He took 

 his way towards the bridge, and, ever and anon, hallooed " Silvio," 

 but no voice answered, save that of a neighbour's terrier. Peter 

 trudged on with quicker pace something dark knocks at his foot 

 he stoops and by his lantern, discovers Silvio pale as ashes, with 

 the blood pouring from a wound in his poetic forehead. 



Peter returned for assistance Silvio was removed to bed. The 

 surgeon was sent for the wound drest and every question put to 

 the sufferer as to the cause of the injuries. But poor Silvio only 

 uttered incoherent speeches about invisible giants, nocturnal demons, 

 mixing up the writer of the review with the assailant of the over 

 night ; he vowed he had been smitten to the earth by a mighty and 

 terrible giant nothing clearer could be got from him. 



Peter and some of his neighbours sallied out, when it was full 

 light, to search the lane. After due inspection, they discovered the 

 assailant of Silvio the giant that had flung him off his feet to be a 

 long iron chain stretched across the road ; the one end fastened to a 

 stake, and the other to the leg of a jackass cropping thistles in the 

 opposite ditch ! 



Peter, as we have said, was a man of homespun intellect, and yet 

 from this very discovery, he would extract a salve for the literary 

 wounds of Silvio ; for when the bardling would complain of some 

 unseen giant who had struck him in print, Peter would say, with 

 a sagacity worthy of a wiser hearer " A giant ! Phoo, phoo, if we 

 could but see who it really was, the giant might turn out, a poor ass 

 cropping thistles in a ditch ! " 



