WHITE KID GLOVES. 219 



are obliged to recount, that an old chuckling moorcock 

 sprung from those very bunches of heather, which, they 

 vainly thought their haven. 



Oh Puck ! Puck ! why didst thou place that officious 

 bird in that particular spot, to scare away the deer ? was 

 there DO other place in all this wide forest where he could 

 set his breast ? A thousand, ten thousand there are, where 

 surely he might have been as happy ; it was a chance as 

 one to a million : see what a pickle we are in ; mark what 

 we have done, what endured ! But thou delightest in 

 mischief, and art grinning, I know, thou impious little elf, 

 and, maledetto die tu sia, wert never better pleased in all 

 thy life. The deer, thus warned, broke over the hill, and 

 the moor-cock went darting away, turning himself side- 

 ways to catch the gale with his wing, chuckling, and rejoic- 

 ing, as it were, in his free flight and the success of his mis- 

 chief. " Now may a dart from Murdoch's quiver pierce 

 thy side before night ! " 



" Well, it was not our fault, that is some comfort, there 

 was no kid glove in the matter ; an illusion you will better 

 understand, when I tell you that a celebrated sportsman, 

 after having made a very long and laborious circuit to come 

 into a quiet shot, destroyed his chance, when on the very 

 verge of attaining it, by a slight elevation of one of his 

 hands which was decked with a white kid glove : it is 

 marvellous how such a piece of furniture found its way into 

 a Scotch forest; and one is tempted to exclaim, in the 

 words of Mrs. Siddons, ' How gat it there ?'"* 



The sportsmen arose, and put the best countenance they 

 could upon the matter, which, sooth to say, was no better 

 than a very doleful one, deadened as their hearts were by 

 disappointment. The deer, however, had not seen them, 

 and were still in the ground before them. In fact, when 

 they came over the hill, they saw them looking back 

 jealously in the moss below. 



* I do not vouch for the tale, but it is said that Mrs. Siddons, hearing a 

 story about a French official who was locked up in his bureau, being rather 

 in an. absent mood, fancied that he had been thrust into a chest of drawers, 

 and exclaimed, with great pathos, " Poor gentleman ! how gat he there ? " 



