CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



he lies, claps his hands to his ear, and with a "hark 

 forward, tantivy!"*' leaves him to remount, lame and 

 at leisure — and ere the fallen has risen and shaken 

 himself, is round the corner of the white village- 

 church, down the dell, over the brook, and close on 

 the heels of the straining pack, all a-yell up the hill 

 crowned by the Squire's Folly. "Every man for him- 

 self, and God for us all," is the devout and ruling 

 apothegm of the day. If death befall, what wonder? 

 since man and horse are mortal ; but death loves bet- 

 ter a wide soft bed with quiet curtains and darkened 

 windows in a still room, the clergyman in the one 

 corner with his prayers, and the physician in another 

 with his pills, making assurance doubly sure, and pre- 

 venting all possibility of the dying Christian's escape. 

 Let oak branch smite the too slowly stooping skull, or 

 rider's back not timely levelled with his steed's; let 

 faithless bank give way, and bury in the brook; let 

 hidden drain yield to fore-feet and work a sudden 

 wreck; let old coal-pit, with briery mouth, betray; and 

 roaring river bear down man and horse, to cliffs un- 

 scalable by the very Welsh goat; let duke's or earl's 

 son go sheer over a quarry twenty feet deep, and 

 as many high; yet "without stop or stay, down the 

 rocky way," the hunter train flows on; for the music 

 grows fiercer and more savage — lo! all that remains 

 together of the pack, in far more dreadful madness 

 [47] 



