Tlie Beard-Blown Goat. 261 



paseng and the ibex, among the bravest of animals and 

 symbols of proud and fearless freedom. The markhor, too, 

 is a grand type of the mountaineer, with its gravity of bear- 

 ing, induced as it were by a hfe of constant peril, and an 

 implacable courage. 



As distinct from sheep — the ordinary fleecy flocks of the 

 dawn — goats are the shaggy clouds that hang on the hill- 

 side, as in Phillips' lines — 



" On the cliffy height 

 Of Penmenmaur and that cloud-piercing hill 

 Plinlimmon, from afar the traveller views 

 Astonished, how the goats their shrubby browse, 

 Gnaw, pendent " — 



or are blown about the peaks, as in Montgomery — 



*' Goats that swing 

 Like spiders on the crags." 



They are the darker nimbics clouds as contrasted with the 

 lamb's-wool cirrus of meteorologists. A suspicion of the 

 sinister lurks about them. They have latent potentialities 

 for mischief. They huddle together at twilight in the 

 wolfish gloaming, and threaten with their horns the monster 

 of Night, whether wolf or witch, that fills the herdsman's 

 hours of darkness with terror — substantial, four-footed terrors, 

 some of them : superstitious, aerial, the others. They patrol 

 the midnight sky lest the enemy with the myriad eyes, the 

 sleepless one, should do them harm. When day breaks, 

 and Aurora opens her folds to drive her charges afield, they 

 separate each after its kind, just as in the pastoral land- 

 scape — 



" Go.its upon the frowning steep, 



Fearless with their kidlings browse. 

 Here a flock of snowy sheep, 



There a herd of motiey cows.'' 



For the cloud- myth, a fancy of primitive man, is altogetl.er 



