24 The Chase 



Companionship ^^ ^> .^> 



SOME were athirst in soul to see again 

 Their fellow-huntsmen o'er the wide champaign, 

 In times long past : to sit with them and talk 

 Of all the chances in their earthly walk ; 

 Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores 

 Of happiness, to when upon the moors. 

 Benighted, close they huddled from the cold. 

 And shared their famish'd scrips. 



John Keats. 



The Plunderer .^:> <:?* »^> 



THE scene, though uncouth to the eye of a 

 professed sportsman, had something in it wildly 

 captivating. The shifting figures on the mountain 

 ridge having the sky for their background appeared 

 to move in the air. The dogs, impatient of their 

 restraint, and maddened with the baying beneath, 

 sprung here and there and strained at the slips 

 which prevented them from joining their com- 

 panions. Looking down, the view was equally 

 striking. The thin mists were not totally dis- 

 persed in the glen, so that it was often through 

 their gauzy medium that the eye strove to discover 

 the motions of the hunters below. Sometimes a 

 breath of wind made the scene visible, the blue rill 

 glittering as it twined itself through its rude and 

 solitary dell. They then could see the shepherds 

 springing with fearless activity from one dangerous 

 point to another, and cheering the dogs on the scent 

 — the whole so diminished by depth and distance, 

 that they looked like pigmies. Again the mists 

 close over them, and the only signs of their con- 

 tinued exertions are the halloos of the men, ascending 



