CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



soon set a-boil, and thou like Julius Caesar and 

 Demetrius Poliorcetes and Alexander the Great 

 and many other ancient and modern kings and heroes 

 thou wert the slave of thy passions. No Scipio wert 

 thou with a Spanish captive. Often in spite of threat- 

 ening eye and uplifted thong uplifted only, for thou 

 wenfst unflogged to thy grave didst thou disappear 

 for days at a time as if lost or dead. Rumours of 

 thee were brought to the kirk by shepherds from the 

 remotest hills in the parish most confused and con- 

 tradictory but, when collected and compared, all 

 agreeing in this that thou wert living, and life-like, 

 and life-imparting, and after a season from thy travels 

 to return; and return thou still didst wearied often 

 and woe-begone purpled thy snow-white curling 

 and thy broad breast torn, not disfigured, by honour- 

 able wounds. For never y6t saw we a fighter like thee. 

 Up on thy hind legs in a moment, like a growling 

 Polar monster, with thy fore-paws round thy foe- 

 man^s neck, bull-dog, colley, mastiff, or greyhound, 

 and down with him in a moment, with as much ease 

 as Cass, in the wrestling ring at Carlisle, would throw 

 a Bagman, and then woe to the throat of the down- 

 fallen, for thy jaws were shark -like as they opened 

 and shut with their terrific tusks, grinding through 

 skin and sinew to the spine. 



Once, and once only bullied out of all endurance 

 [76] 



