CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



mals, with pricked-up ears and brandished tail, are 

 aware that her hour is come. Plash, plash, through 

 the marsh, and then on the dry furze beyond, you see 

 her large dark-brown eyes — Soho, soho, soho — Halloo, 

 halloo, halloo — for a moment the seemingly horned 

 creature appears to dally with the danger, and to 

 linger ere she lays her lugs on her shoulder, and away, 

 like thoughts pursuing thoughts — away fly hare and 

 hounds towards the mountain. 



Stand all still for a minute — for not a bush the 

 height of our knee to break our view — and is not 

 that brattling burst up the brae "beautiful exceed- 

 ingly," and sufficient to chain in admiration the beat- 

 ings of the rudest gazer**s heart? Yes; of all beautiful 

 sights — none more, none so much so, as the miracu- 

 lous motion of a four-footed wild animal, changed at 

 once, from a seeming inert sod or stone, into flight 

 fleet as that of the falcon's wing! Instinct against 

 instinct! fear and ferocity in one flight! Pursuers and 

 pursued bound together, in every turning and twist- 

 ing of their career, by the operation of two headlong 

 passions! Now they are all three upon her — and she 

 dies! No! glancing aside, like a bullet from a wall, 

 she bounds almost at a right angle from her straight 

 course — and, for a moment, seems to have made good 

 her escape. Shooting headlong one over the other, all 

 three, with erected tails, suddenly bring themselves 

 [36] 



