WARWICK WOODLANDS. 53 



be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right round with 

 his back to the critter ; he got a bit of a round jacket on, and 

 he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs, kind o' 

 straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but his 

 t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with 

 his big black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h 11, and fiercer ; 

 well ! the bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and 

 I was in hopes, I swon, that he would have hooked him ; but 

 just then McTavish, starts to run, going along as I have told 

 you, hind eend foremost bo-oo went the bull, a-boo-oo, and off 

 he starts like a stride, with his tail stret on eend, and his eyes 

 staiiu, and all the critters arter him, and then they kind o' circled 

 round and all stood still and stared and stawmped, 'till he 

 got nigh to them, and then they all stricks off agin ; and so they 

 went on runnin and then standin still, and so they went on 

 the hull of an hour, I'll be bound ; and I lay there upon my 

 back laughin 'till I was stiff and sore all over ; and then came 

 Waxskin and all Archer, wrathy as h 11 and sweaiin' Lord 

 how they did swear ! 



"They'd been a flavin there through the darned thorns and 

 briers, and the old stinkin mud holes, and flushed a most almigh- 

 ty sight of cock, where the brush was too thick to shoot them, 

 and every one they flushed, he came stret out into the open field, 

 where. Archer knew we should have been, and where we should 

 have killed a thunderin mess, and no mistake ; and they went on 

 dainmin, and wonderin, and sweatin through the brush, till they 

 got out to the far eend, and there they had to make tracks back 

 to us through the bog meadow, under a brilin sun, and when 

 they did get back, the bull was jest a goin through the bars 

 and every d d drop o' the rum was drinked up ; and the sun 

 wns settin, and the day's shootin that was spoiled ! and then 

 McTavish tantalized them the worst sort. But I did laugh to 

 kill ; it was the best I ever did see, was that spree Ha ! ha ! 

 ha !" 



And, as he finished, he burst out into his first horse laugh, in 

 which I chorused him most heartily, having in truth been in 

 convulsions, between the queerness of his lingo, and the absurd- 

 ly grotesque attitudes into which he threw himself, in imitating 

 the persons concerning whom his story ran. After this, jest 

 succeeded jest ! and story, story ! 'till, in good truth, the glass 

 circling the while with most portentous speed, I began to feel 

 bees in my head, and till in truth no one, I believe, of the party, 



