THE LIFE OF A FOXHOUND. 43 



may already have been learned from his 

 expressed opinions and sentiments, he 

 possessed strange quirks and notions, and, to 

 use his own graphic description of his 

 imaginary pedigree, might have been " a 

 cross between a bull-dog and a flat iron." 

 Much nice sophism might be used to support 

 the poetical origin of Tom Holt; but if 

 volumes were written to define his allegory 

 more clearly, the end could not be more satis- 

 factorily arrived at than by briefly saying, 

 " it can far more easily be conceived than 

 described." Tom was a reflective man; he 

 could not see an infant in its mother's arms 

 without the endeavour to picture to his vivid 

 imagination how it would look when blear- 

 eyed with age. A piece of thistle-down, whirl- 

 ing here and there, now catching in a bramble, 

 and then skimming along in its varied, 

 uncertain course, would make him think of 

 ** cause and effect " for an hour. A dew- 

 drop, a feather in the air, a film of gossamer, 

 often set Tom Holt '* a-thinking " for the 

 livelong day. He was a dreamer, and had 

 more strange fantasies, with eyes wide and 

 staring open, than a thousand such will-o'-the 

 wisps fanned by the fairies' midwife. Queen 



