60 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



How my cheek paled when a warning cry from some watch- 

 ful singer would hush all the timid choir around, and with a 

 sudden swoop of overcoming wings, the dark hawk hurled its 

 fearful form down amidst the scattering throng ; and then, 

 the flushing hot blood, how it tingled through me, as I grasped 

 my gun ! 



My very soul on fire, I shivered with the eagerness of 

 vengeful wrath, when that sharp wail broke upon the breathless 

 silence, and upward, with shrill, triumphing screams, the 

 robber mounted, in heavy flappings, with the stricken victim 

 struggling in his claws. 



One concentrated instant, with my nerves all steel, and 

 his strong flight swerves to the report ! a shriek of baffled 

 fierceness, and he is whirling prone to earth ! 



No errant knight, careering earth intent on deeds of " high 

 emprise," did ever press his mailed foot, at last, on slain 

 dragon's scaly neck, with more exulting consciousness of lof- 

 tiest mede, than I in that proud moment of stern victory. 



It was the madness of a glorious exultation when I thus 

 slew the prowlers of earth, or air, or water ! I was exalted 

 by the act, and felt happy in their pangs, as it seemed to me, 

 because they chased and tore the gentle creatures that I loved ! 

 I could not realize in this foolish illusion, the mere " savagery 

 of unreclaimed blood," therefore did I rejoice in it with un- 

 utterable delight ! It was not that I was cruel, either, 

 I was drunk ! drunk with blood in the bewildering riot of 

 youthful energies and unaccustomed power ! 



Ah, and I was a daring climber, too, in those days ! a 

 clean shaft, thirty feet to the limbs, was a mere irritation to 

 me, especially if I had espied a grey squirrel's summer 

 pavilion swinging to the breeze upon its lofty top. 



When I had mounted, what a joy it was, rocking with un- 

 dizzied brain from topmost fork, to look out over the upheav- 

 ing, restless ocean of green leaves, and hear their low, solemn 

 murmurings go by ! They filled me with a strange exulting, 



