86 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



fawn-coloured, slim-tailed, bright-eyed, half-reasoning brutes, 

 that Edwin Landseer would have been proud to paint ; and 

 there were three thorough-bred pointers, that Cooper (entomo- 

 logical Cooper) would have gloried in ; besides sundry cats, 

 which, like ghosts, wandered about unnoticed by the dogs. 

 The poor cynophobist, from the praiseworthy desire to be 

 social, dovetailed an occasional half-score words into the 

 conversation, or delivered himself of an apology for a laugh, 

 whenever the landlord was unusually facetious; but he was 

 evidently in purgatory, and trembled for my safety, in addition 

 to his own, when he beheld a fox-dog resting his wiry nose 

 in my lap, while another, with sparkling eyes, his forefeet 

 on my knees, was asking for every mouthful that I ate. 



It was late ere we retired; and then the winding staircase 

 lighted by loop-holes, the quaint bed-rooms, the deep-latticed 

 gothic windows in the massive walls, had so many charms and 

 attractions, and the moon continued to shine for hours so very 

 brightly, that the Insect-Hunter slept not till morning was far 

 advanced; and when at last sleep did come, he was employed 

 in swinging censers, kneeling to crucifixes, confessing sinners, 

 or regaling his palate with the most exquisite grayling, and 

 quaffing the delicious wines of Germany in the cool and well- 

 appointed cellars of Llanthony. Oh may Llanthony never 

 become common ! may it never, like the banks of Niagara, 

 re-echo the cries — " good cigars, ginger pop, and soda water !" 



'Twas morning, — all was stir and bustle, the incessant 

 bleating of mountain sheep, brought to be washed in the 

 river, and crying to their lambs, now unable to recognise their 

 mothers in their cleanliness, was unutterably wearisome : then 

 the bay of the fox-dogs, the cheering of the huntsman, and 

 the occasional blast of his horn, called forth the echoes of 

 every mountain, which, reverberating from side to side, seemed 

 as though they never would be still. Alas, what labour after 

 consistency have those to undergo whose writings are the 

 result of imagination ! Which of them all would dare to couple 

 the Midsummer sheep-shearing and the hunting of foxes ? yet 

 these are coetaneous at Llanthony. Foxes at Llanthony are 

 " animals of so base a nature that the law will not protect 

 them at any season :" they are hunted to the death ; the object, 

 though never to be accomplished, is their extermination. The 

 dogs used in the chace are of prodigious speed — they almost 



