COURSING 



* Stand all still for a minute — for not a bush the 

 height of our knee to break our view — and is not 

 that brattling burst up the brae ** beautiful ex- 

 ceedingly," and sufficient to chain in admiration 

 the beatings of the rudest gazer's heart? Yes, of 

 all beautiful sights — none more, none so much so, 

 as the miraculous motion of a four-footed wild 

 animal, changed at once, from a seeming inert sod 

 or stone into flight fleet as that of the falcon's 

 wing ! Instinct against instinct, fear and ferocity 

 in one flight! Pursuers and pursued bound together 

 in every turning and twisting of their career, by 

 the operation of two headlong passions ! Now 

 they are all three upon her — and she dies ! No ! 

 glancing aside, like a bullet from a wall, she bounds 

 almost at a right angle from her straight course— 

 and, for a moment seems to have made good her 

 escape. Shooting headlong one over the other, all 

 three, with erected tails, suddenly bring themselves 

 up — like racing barks when down goes the helm, 

 and one after another, bowsprit and boom almost 

 entangled, rounds the buoy and again bears up on 

 the starboard tack upon a wind — and in a close 

 line, heel to heel, so that you might cover them 

 all with a sheet— again, all open-mouthed on her 

 haunches, seem to drive, and go with her over the 

 cliff". We are all on foot— and pray what horse 

 could gallop through among all these quagmires, 

 over all the hags in these peat-mosses, over all 



53 H 



