CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



by a half-drunken carrier did we consent to let thee 

 engage in a pitched battle with a mastiff victorious 

 in fifty fights a famous shanker and a throttler 

 beyond all compare. It was indeed a bloody business 

 now growling along the glawr of the road a hairy 

 hurricane now snorting in the suffocating ditch 

 now fair play on the clean and clear crown of the 

 causey now rolling over and over through a chance- 

 open white little gate, into a cottage -garden now 

 separated by choking them both with a cord now 

 brought out again with savage and fiery eyes to the 

 scratch on a green plat round the signboard-swing- 

 ing tree in the middle of the village auld women in 

 their mutches crying out, "Shame! whare^s the min- 

 ister? 11 young women, with combs in their pretty 

 heads, blinking with pale and almost weeping faces 

 from low-lintelled doors children crowding for sight 

 and safety on the louping-on-stane and loud cries 

 ever and anon at each turn and eddy of the fight, of 

 "Well done, Fro, well done, Fro see how he worries 

 his windpipe well done, Fro! 11 for Fro was the de- 

 light and glory of the whole parish, and the honour 

 of all its inhabitants, male and female, was felt to be 

 staked on the issue while at intervals was heard the 

 harsh hoarse voice of the carrier and his compeers, 

 cursing and swearing in triumph in a many-oathed 

 language peculiar to the race that drive the broad- 

 [77] 



