CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



and ghastlier his long bloody tongue, bitten through 

 at the very root in agony. The branches of his ant- 

 lers pierced the sward like swords. His bulk seemed 

 mightier in death even than when it was crowned 

 with that kingly head, snuffing the north-wind. In 

 other two hours we were down at Moor-edge and up 

 again, with an eager train, to the head of the Great 

 Glen, coining and going a distance of a dozen long 

 miles. A hay-waggon forced its way through the bogs 

 and over the braes and on our return into the in- 

 habited country, we were met by shoals of peasants, 

 men, women, and children, huzzaing over the Prey; 

 for not for many years never since the funeral of 

 the old lord had the antlers of a red-deer been seen 

 by them trailing along the heather. 



Fifty years and more and oh ! my weary soul ! half 

 a century took a long long time to die away, in gloom 

 and in glory, in pain and pleasure, in storms through 

 which were afraid to fly even the spirit's most eagle- 

 winged raptures, in calms that rocked all her feelings 

 like azure-plumed halcyons to rest though now to 

 look back upon it, what seems it all but a transitory 

 dream of toil and trouble, of which the smiles, the 

 sighs, the tears, the groans, were all alike vain as the 

 forgotten sunbeams and the clouds! Fifty years and 

 more are gone and this is the Twelfth of August, 

 Eighteen hundred and twenty-eighty and all the 

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