CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



gi-eensward of some moor-surrounded mount, not far 

 from the foot of some range of cliffs, and with our 

 face up to the sky, wait, unwearying, till a speck was 

 seen to cross the blue cloudless lift, and steadying 

 itself after a minute's quivering into motionless rest, 

 as if hung suspended there by the counteracting at- 

 traction of heaven and earth, known to be a Falcon ! 

 Balanced far above its prey, and, soon as the right 

 moment came, ready to pounce down, and fly away 

 with the treasure in its talons to its crying eyry ! If no 

 such speck were for hours visible in the ether, doubt- 

 less dream upon dream, rising unbidden, g,nd all of 

 their own wild accord, congenial with the wilderness, 

 did, like phantasmagoria, pass to and fro, backwards 

 and forwards, along the darkened curtain of our im- 

 agination, all the lights of reason being extinguished 

 or removed! In that trance, not unheard, although 

 scarcely noticed, was the cry of the curlew, the mur- 

 mur of the little moorland burn, or the din, almost 

 like dashing, of the far-off loch. 'T was thus that the 

 senses, in their most languid state, ministered to the 

 fancy, and fed her for a future day, when all the 

 imagery then received so imperfectly, and in broken 

 fragments, into her mysterious keeping, was to arise 

 in orderly array, and to form a world more lovely and 

 more romantic even than the reality, which then lay 

 hushed or whispering, glittering or gloomy, in the 

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