MISCELLANEA. 
599 
wards, then suddenly halting and wheeling round, snuffing up 
the wind as if in distrust of the intruders, or tearing up the earth 
with a wild extravagance of action ; but the experienced hunters 
managed, with the assistance of the greyhounds, to cope the 
wild ponies in a corner of the hills where perpendicular rocks, 
rising like walls, prevented their escape. Garonwy had already 
captured three of the most beautiful little fellows in the world ; 
these he expected to sell for £4 or £5 each at the next Bala 
fair, — to him an important sum, and amounting to one-fourth of 
the annual rent he paid for a considerable track of sheep walk ; 
but there yet remained another most untameable little creature, 
whose highly crested mane and tail, and wild eye, and distended 
nostril, shewed that he was a very Bucephalus of the hills, and 
determined to preserve his liberty; nor indeed was it safe to 
attack him in the ordinary way. Many of the three-year-olds 
have been known to break the limbs of their pursuers, and I 
have heard of a shepherd having been killed by a pony striking 
him to the ground, and kicking and trampling him to death. 
Garonway was determined to give the little hero a chase over 
the flats of the hills, and so overcome him by fatigue before the 
lasso was flung: the dogs were unslipped, and off they went 
swift as the wind, followed by Hugo, the two footmen posted 
on an eminence : the course was unusually long, but the iron 
frame of the little Merlyn appeared superior to fatigue. Hugo 
Garonwy, naturally impatient, became heated in the pursuit ; 
and, neglecting to keep the arrangement of the coiled rope clear, 
he rashly flung the lasso over the head of the wild horse, but, at 
the same time, the other extremity of the cord twisted itself 
round his body, and, tightening to its extent, the compression 
became almost insupportable; at last, in spite of every effort to 
disengage himself, he was dragged from his horse. The af- 
frighted Merlyn, finding himself manacled by the rope, darted 
off' with increasing speed, pulling Garonwy over the rocky 
ground and stunted brushwood. The animal, terrified at so un- 
natural a spectacle, dashed onward, under the hope of freeing 
himself from the rope ; but the rebounding body of Garonwy 
still followed : the horse’s struggles to free himself were truly 
frightful. Whether the sufferings of Garonwy were protracted, 
or whether some friendly rock dashed out his brains at the onset 
of the struggle, cannot be known ; but the wild animal, frenzied 
and blinded by terror, rushed over a beetling cliff* overhanging 
the sea-shore, and the hunter and the horse were found at the 
bottom, a disgusting misshapen semblance of what they had. 
been when living. 
Cambrian Quarterly Magazine. 
