CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



— going to the fishing not only without leave but 

 against orders — bathing in the forbidden pool, where 

 the tailor was drowned — drying powder before the 

 school-room fire, and blowing himself and two crack- 

 skulled cronies to the ceiling — tying kettles to the 

 tails of dogs — shooting an old woman's laying hen — 

 galloping bare-backed shelties down stony steeps — 

 climbing trees to the slenderest twig on which bird 

 could build, and up the tooth-of-time-indented sides 

 of old castles after wallflowers and starlings — being 

 run away with in carts by colts against turnpike 

 gates — buying bad ballads from young gipsy -girls, 

 who, on receiving a sixpence, give ever so many kisses 

 in return, saying, "Take your change out of that"'; — 

 on a borrowed broken-knee'd pony, with a switch-tail 

 — a devil for galloping — not only attending country- 

 races for a saddle and collar, but entering for and 

 winning the prize — dancing like a devil in barns at 

 kirns — seeing his blooming partner home over the 

 blooming heather, most perilous adventure of all in 

 which virgin-puberty can be involved — fighting with 

 a rival in corduroy breeches, and poll shorn beneath 

 a caup, till his eyes just twinkle through the swollen 

 blue — and, to conclude "this strange eventful his- 

 tory," once brought home at one o'clock in the morn- 

 ing, God knows whence or by whom, and found by the 

 shrieking servant, sent out to listen for him in the 

 [25] 



