CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



wings — how apt for flight from clime to clime! — joy- 

 ously they beat the liquid radiance, till to the loud 

 flapping high rises the mist, and wide spreads the 

 foam, almost suflicient for a rainbow. Safe are they 

 from all birds of prey. The Osprey dashes down on 

 the teal, or sea-trout, swimming within or below their 

 shadow. The great Erne, or Sea-eagle, pounces on 

 the mallard, as he mounts from the bulrushes before 

 the wild swans sailing, with all wings hoisted, like a 

 fleet — but osprey nor eagle dares to try his talons on 

 that stately bird — for he is bold in his beauty, and 

 formidable as he is fair; the pinions that swim and 

 soar can also smite; and though the one be a lover of 

 war, the other of peace, yet of them it may be said, 



'^The eagle he is lord above. 

 The swan is lord below f'' 



To have shot such a creature — so large — so white 

 — so high-soaring — and on the winds of midnight 

 wafted from so far — a creature that seemed not 

 merely a stranger in that loch, but belonging to some 

 mysterious land in another hemisphere, whose coast 

 ships with frozen rigging have been known to visit, 

 driving under bare poles through a month's snow 

 storms — to have shot such a creature was an era in 

 our imagination, from which, had nature been more 

 prodigal, we might have sprung up a poet. Once, and 

 [88] 



