CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



mouse watch at the gable end of the house just at the 

 corner, take a solar observation, and by it look for 

 her on bank or brae — somewhere about the premises 

 — if unsuccessful, peep into the byre, and up through 

 a hole among the dusty divots of the roof, and chance 

 is you see her eyes glittering far-ben in the gloom; 

 but if she be not there either, into the barn and up on 

 the mow, and surely she is on the straw or on the 

 baulks below the kipples. No. Well, then, let your eye 

 travel along the edge of that little wood behind the 

 cottage — ay, yonder she is! — but she sees both you 

 and your two terriers — one rough and the other 

 smooth — and, slinking away through a gap in the 

 old hawthorn hedge in among the hazels, she either 

 lies perdu^ or is up a fir-tree almost as high as the 

 magpie"'s or corby''s nest. 



Now — observe — shooting cats is one thing — and 

 hunting them is another — and shooting and hunting, 

 though they may be united, are here treated sepa- 

 rately; so, in the present case, the cat makes her es- 

 cape. But get her watching birds — young larks, per- 

 haps, walking on the lea — or young linnets hanging 

 on the broom — down by yonder in the holm lands, 

 where there are no trees, except indeed that one glo- 

 rious single tree, the Golden Oak, and he is guarded 

 by Glowrer, and then what a most capital chase! 

 Stretching herself up with crooked back, as if taking 

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