CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



shall see by and by, there is one too here,) and com- 

 mend us, even with harriers, to the ups and downs 

 of the pastoral or silvan heights. If old or indolent, 

 take your station on a heaven -kissing hill, and hug 

 the echoes to your heart. Or, if you will ride, then 

 let it be on a nimble galloway of some fourteen 

 hands, that can gallop a good pace on the road, and 

 keep sure footing on bridle-paths, or upon the path- 

 less braes and by judicious horsemanship, you may 

 meet the pack at many a loud-mouthed burst, and 

 haply be not far out at the death. But the school- 

 boy and the shepherd and the whipper-in as 

 each hopes for favour from his own Diana let them 

 all be on foot and have studied the country for 

 every imaginable variety that can occur in the win- 

 ter's campaign. One often hears of a cunning old 

 fox but the cunningest old fox is a simpleton to 

 the most guileless young hare. What deceit in every 

 double! What calculation in every squat! Of what 

 far more complicated than Cretan Labyrinth is the 

 creature, now hunted for the first time, sitting in 

 the centre! a-listening the baffled roar! Now into the 

 pool she plunges, to free herself from the fatal scent 

 that lures on death. Now down the torrent course 

 she runs and leaps, to cleanse it from her poor paws, 

 fur-protected from the sharp flints that lame the 

 fiends that so sorely beset her, till many limp along 

 [39] 



