CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



cairn only a little lower than the falcon's nest. 



What signifies any sport in the open air, except 

 in congenial scenery of earth and heaven? Go, thou 

 gentle Cockney! and angle in the New River; but, 

 bold Englishman, come with us and try a salmon-cast 

 in the old Tay. Go, thou gentle Cockney ! and course 

 a suburban hare in the purlieus of Blackheath; 

 but, bold Englishman, come with us and course an 

 animal that never heard a city-bell, by day a hare, 

 by night an old woman, that loves the dogs she 

 dreads, and, hunt her as you will with a leash and a 

 half of lightfoots, still returns at dark to the same 

 form in the turf-dike of the garden of the mountain 

 cottage. The children, who love her as their own eyes 

 for she has been as a pet about the family, summer 

 and winter, since that chubby-cheeked urchin, of 

 some five years old, first began to swing in his self- 

 rocking cradle will scarcely care to see her started 

 nay, one or two of the wickedest among them will 

 join in the halloo; for often, ere this, "has she cheated 

 the very jowlers, and lauched ower her shouther at 

 the lang dowgs walloping ahint her, sair forfaquhen, 

 up the benty brae and it's no the day that she's 

 gaun to be killed by Rough Robin, or smooth Spring, 

 or the red Bick, or the hairy Lurcher though a' 

 fowr be let lowse on her at ance, and ye surround 

 her or she rise." What are your great big fat lazy 

 [29] 



