FOX AND HOUND 



the water-cressy, and puddocky ditches, sinking 

 soft on hither and thither side, even to the two- 

 legged leaper's ankle or knee— up that hill on the 

 perpendicular strewn with flint-shivers — down 

 those loose hanging cliffs — through that brake of 

 old stunted birches with stools hard as iron — over 

 that mile of quaking muir where the plover breeds 

 — and — finally — up, up, up, to where the dwarfed 

 heather dies away among the cinders, and in 

 winter you might mistake a flock of ptarmigan for 

 a patch of snow. The thing is impossible — so we 

 are all on foot — and the fleetest keeper that ever 

 footed it in Scotland shall not in a run of three 

 miles give us sixty yards. **Ha! Peter, the wild 

 boy, how are you off for wind ? " — we exultingly 

 exclaim in giving Red-jacket the go-by on the bent. 

 But see, see, they are bringing her back again 

 down the Red Mount — glancing aside, she throws 

 them all three out — yes, all three, and few enow 

 too, though fair play be a jewel, and ere they 

 can recover, she is ahead a hundred yards up 

 the hill. There is a beautiful trial of bone and 

 bottom ! Now one, and then another, takes almost 

 imperceptibly the lead ; but she steals away from 

 them inch by inch — beating them all blind — and 

 suddenly disappearing, heaven knows how, leaves 

 them all in the lurch. With outloUing tongues, 

 hanging heads, panting sides, and drooping tails, 

 they come one by one down the steep, looking 



54 



