she dies! No! glancing aside, like a bullet | toral or silvan heights. If old or indolent, take from a wall, she bounds almost at a right angle your station on a heaven-kissing hill, and hug from her straight course-and, for a moment, the echoes to your heart. Or, if you will ride, seems to have made good her escape. Shooting then let it be on a nimble galloway of some fourheadlong one over the other, all three, with teen hands, that can gallop a good pace on the erected tails, suddenly bring themselves up-road, and keep sure footing on bridle paths, or like racing barks when down goes the helm, upon the pathless braes-and by judicious and one after another, bowsprit and boom horsemanship, you may meet the pack at many almost entangled, rounds the buoy, and again a loud-mouthed burst, and haply be not far out bears up on the starboard tack upon a wind-at the death. But the schoolboy and the shepand in a close line, head to heel, so that you might cover them all with a sheet-again, all open-mouthed on her haunches, seem to drive, and go with her over the cliff.

We are all on foot-and pray what horse could gallop through among all these quag-fox-but the cunningest old fox is a simpleton mires, over all the hags in these peat-mosses, over all the water-cressy and puddocky ditches, sinking soft on hither and thither side, even to the two-legged leaper's ankle or knee-up that hill on the perpendicular strewn with flintshivers down these loose-hanging cliffs-ing the baffled roar ! through that brake of old stunted birches with plunges, to free herself from the fatal scent stools hard as iron-over that mile of quaking that lures on death. Now down the torrent muir where the plover breeds-and-finally-course she runs and leaps, to cleanse it from up-up-up to where the dwarfed heather dies away among the cinders, and in winter you might mistake a flock of ptarmigan for a patch of snow!

Lion and the Tiger, mounts them in scarlet on such steeds as never neighed before the flood, nor "summered high in bliss" on the sloping pastures of undeluged Ararat-and gathers them together in gallant array on the edge of the cover,

"When first the hunter's startling horn is heard Upon the golden hills."

tracts, but for the triumphs of the Turf! Blood

blood there must be, either for strength, or speed, or endurance. The very heaviest cavalry-the Life Guards and the Scots Greys, and all other dragoons, must have blood. But without racing and fox-hunting, where could it be found? Such pastimes nerve one of the arms of the nation when in battle; but for them 'twould be palsied. What better education, What a squadron of cavalry! What fiery eyes and flaming nostrils-betokening with what too, not only for a horse, but his rider, before ardent passion the noble animals will revel in playing a bloodier game in his first war camthe chase! Bay, brown, black, dun, chestnut paign? Thus he becomes demicorpsed with sorrel, gray-of all shades and hues-and the noble animal; and what easy, equable motion to him is afterwards a charge over a every courser distinguished by his own peculiar wide level plain, with nothing in the way but character of shape and form-yet all blending a few regiments of flying Frenchmen! The harmoniously as they crown the mount; so that a painter would only have to group and hills and dales of merry England have been the best riding-school to her gentlemen-her colour them as they stand, nor lose, if able to catch them, one of the dazzling lights or deep-gentlemen who have not lived at home at ease ening shadows streamed on them from that sunny, yet not unstormy sky.

You read in books of travels and romances, of Barbs and Arabs galloping in the desertand well doth Sir Walter speak of Saladin at the head of his Saracenic chivalry; but take our word for it, great part of all such descriptions are mere falsehood or fudge. Why in the devil's name should dwellers in the desert always be going at full speed? And how can that full speed be any thing more than a slow heavy hand-gallop at the best, the barbs being up to the belly at every stroke? They are always, it is said, in high condition-but we, who know something about horse-flesh, give that assertion the lie. They have seldom any thing either to eat or drink; they are as lean as church mice; and covered with clammy sweat before they have ambled a league from the tent. And then such a set of absurd riders, with knees up to their noses, like so many tailors riding to Brentford, via the deserts of Arabia! Such bits, such bridles, and such saddles! But the whole set-out, rider and ridden, accoutrements and all, is too much for one's gravity, and must occasion a frequent laugh to the wild ass as he goes braying unharnessed by. But look there! blood, and British bone! Not bred in and in, to the death of all the fine strong animal spirits -but blood intermingled and interfused by twenty crosses, nature exulting in each successive produce, till her power can no further go, and in yonder glorious grey,

Arabian

but, with Paget, and Stewart, and Seymour, and Cotton, and Somerset, and Vivian, have

left their hereditary halls, and all the peaceful pastimes pursued among the silvan scenery, swords with the vaunted Gallic chivalry; and to try the mettle of their steeds, and cross still have they been in the shock victorious; witness the skirmish that astonished Napoleon at Saldanha-the overthrow that uncrowned him at Waterloo !

"Well, do you know, that, after all you have said, Mr. North, I cannot understand the passion and the pleasure of fox-hunting. It seems to me both cruel and dangerous."

Cruelty! Is their cruelty in laying the rein on their necks, and delivering them up to the transport of their high condition-for every of that maddening cry, and letting loose to their throbbing vein is visible-at the first full burst What danger but of breaking their own legs, delight the living thunderbolts? Danger! necks, or backs, and those of their riders? And what right have you to complain of that, lying all your length, a huge hulking fellow, snoring and snorting half-asleep on a sofa, sufficient to sicken a whole street? What though it be but a smallish, reddish-brown, sharp-nosed animal, with pricked-up ears, and passionately fond of poultry, that they pursue? till he is run in upon-once, perhaps, in the After the first Tally-ho, Reynard is rarely seen, whole run, skirting a wood, or crossing a comwind of horses, to a storm of canine musicmon. It is an Idea that is pursued, on a whirlworthy, both, of the largest lion that ever leaped among a band of Moors, sleeping at midnight by an extinguished fire on the African sands. There is, we verily believe it, nothing Foxy in the Fancy of one man in all that glorious field of Three Hundred. Once off and away-while wood and welkin rings-and nothing is feltnothing is imaged in that hurricane flight, but scorn of all obstructions, dikes, ditches drains, brooks, palings, canals, rivers, and afl the impediments reared in the way of so many rejoicing madmen, by nature, art, and science, in an inclosed, cultivated, civilized, and Chris tian country. There they go-prince and peer, The proof of the pudding is in the eating of baronet and squire-the nobility and gentry of t; and where, we ask, were the British cavalry England, the flower of the ma of the earth, ever overthrown? And how could the great each on such a steed as Pollux never reined, north-country horse-coupers perform their con-nor Philip's warlike son-for could we imagine

"Gives the world assurance of a horse!"

Form the Three Hundred into squadron, or squadrons, and in the hand of each rider a sabre alone, none of your lances, all bare his breast but for the silver-laced blue, the gorgeous uniform of the Hussars of England-confound all cuirasses and cuirassiers !-let the trumpet sound a charge, and ten thousand of the proudest of the Barbaric chivalry be opposed with spear and scimitar-and through their snow-ranks will the Three Hundred go like thaw-splitting them into dissolution with the noise of thunder.

FYTTE SECOND.

We are always unwilling to speak of ourselves, lest we should appear egotistical-for egotism we detest. Yet the sporting world must naturally be anxious to know something of our early history-and their anxiety shall therefore be now assuaged. The truth is, that we enjoyed some rare advantages and opportunities in our boyhood regarding field sports, and grew up, even from that first great era in every Lowlander's life, Breeching-day, not only a fisher but a fowler; and it is necessary that we enter into some interesting details.

There had been from time immemorial, it was understood, in the Manse, a duck-gun of very great length, and a musket that, according to an old tradition, had been out both in the Seventeen and Forty-five. There were ten boys of us, and we succeeded by rotation to gun or musket, each boy retaining possession for a single day only; but then the shooting season continued all the year. They must have been of admirable materials and workmanship; for neither of them so much as once burst during the Seven Years' War. The mus

surely rather have been a blunderbuss in disguise, was a perfect devil for kicking when she received her discharge; so much so indeed, that it was reckoned creditable for the smaller boys not to be knocked down by the recoil. She had a very wide mouth-and was thought by us "an awfu' scatterer;" a qualification which we considered of the very highest merit. She carried any thing we choose to put into her-there still being of all her performances

Bucephalus here, ridden by his own tamer, Alexander would be thrown out during the very first burst, and glad to find his way dismounted to a village alehouse for a pail of meal and water. Hedges, trees, groves, gardens, orchards, woods, farmhouses, huts, halls, mansions, palaces, spires, steeples, towers, and temples, all go wavering by, each demigod seeing, or seeing them not, as his winged steed skims or labours along, to the swelling or sinking music, now loud as a near regimental band, now faint as an echo. Far and wide over the country are dispersed the scarlet runners-and a hundred villages pour forth their admiring swarms, as the main current of the chase roars by, or disparted runlets float wearied and all astray, lost at last in the perplexing woods. Crash goes the top-timber of the fivebarred gate-away over the ears flies the exrough-rider in a surprising somerset-after a succession of stumbles, down is the gallant Grey on knees and nose, making sad work among the fallow-Friendship is a fine thing, and the story of Damon and Pythias most affecting indeed-but Pylades eyes Orestes on his back sorely drowned in sludge, and tenderly leaping over him as he lies, claps his hands to his ear, and with a "hark forward, tantivy "ket, who, we have often since thought, must leaves him to remount, lame and at leisureand ere the fallen has risen and shaken himself, is round the corner of the white villagechurch, down the dell, over the brook and close on the heels of the straining pack, all ayell up the hill crowned by the Squire's Folly. Every man for himself, 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 better a wide soft bed with quiet curtains and darkened win-a loud and favourable report-balls, buttons, dows in a still room, the clergyman in one corner with his prayers, and the physician in another with his pills, making assurance doubly sure, and preventing 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 unscalable by the very Welch 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 than hydrophobia, leaping out of their skins, under insanity from the scent, for Vulpes can hardly now make a crawl of it; and ere he, they, whipper-in, or any one of the other three demoniacs, have time to look in one another's splashed faces, he is torn into a thousand pieces, gobbled up n the general growl; and smug, and smooth, and dry, and warm, and cozey, as he was an hour and twenty-five minutes ago exactly, in his furze bush in the cover-he is now piecemeal in about thirty distinct stomachs; and is he not, pray, well off for sepulture?

chucky-stanes, slugs, or hail. She had but two faults-she had got addicted, probably in early life, to one habit of burning priming, and to another of hanging fire; habits of which it was impossible, for us at least, to break her by the most assiduous hammering of many a new series of flints; but such was the high place she justly occupied in the affection and admira tion of us all, that faults like these did not in the least detract from her general character. Our delight, when she did absolutely and positively and bonâ fide go off, was in proportion to the comparative rarity of that occurrence; and as to hanging fire-why we used to let her take her own time, contriving to keep her at the level as long as our strength sufficed, eyes shut perhaps, teeth clenched, face girning, and head slightly averted over the right shoulder, till Muckle-mou'd Meg, who, like most other Scottish females, took things leisurely, went off at last with an explosion like the blowing up of a rock.

The "Lang gun," again, was of much gentler disposition, and, instead of kicking, ran into the opposite extreme on being let off, inclining forwards as if she would follow the shot. We believe, however, this apparent peculiarity arose from her extreme length, which rendered it difficult for us to hold her horizontally-and hence the muzzle being at tracted earthward, the entire gun appeared to leave the shoulder of the Shooter. That such

is the true theory of the phenomenon seems to be proved by this-that when the "Lang Gun" was, in the act of firing, laid across the shoulders of two boys standing about a yard the one before the other, she kicked every bit as well as the blunderbuss. Her lock was of a very peculiar construction. It was so contrived that, when on full cock, the dog-head, as we used to call it, stood back at least seven inches, and unless the flint was put in to a nicety, by pulling the trigger you by no means caused any uncovering of the pan, but things in general remained in statu quo-and there was perfect silence. She had a worm-eaten stock into which the barrel seldom was able to get itself fairly inserted; and even with the aid of circumvoluting twine, 'twas always coggly. Thus, too, the vizy (Anglice sight) generally inclined unduly to one side or the other, and was the cause of all of us every day hitting and hurting objects of whose existence even we were not aware, till alarmed by the lowing or the galloping of cattle on the hills; and we hear now the yell of an old woman in black bonnet and red cloak, who shook her staff at us like a witch, with the blood running down the furrows of her face, and with many oaths maintained that she was murdered. The " Lang Gun" had certainly a strong vomit-and, with slugs or swan-shot, was dangerous at two hundred yards to any living thing. Bob Howie, at that distance arrested the career of a mad dog -a single slug having been sent through the eye into the brain. We wonder if one or both of those companions of our boyhood be yet alive-or, like many other great guns that have since made more noise in the world, fallen a silent prey to the rust of oblivion.

each particular barn-door, when the farmers were at work, you might have thought you saw the entire sparrow population of the parish Seldom a Sabbath, during pairing, building, breeding, nursing, and training season, could you hear a single syllable of the sermon for their sakes, all a-huddle and a-chirp in the bel fry and among the old loose slates. On every stercoraceous deposit on coach, cart, or bridle road, they were busy on grain and pulse; and, in spite of cur and cat, legions embrowned every cottage garden. Emigration itself in many million families would have left no perceptible void; and the inexterminable multitude would have laughed at the Plague.

The other small birds of the parish began to feel their security from our shot, and sung their best, unscared on hedge, bush, and tree. Per haps, too, for sake of their own sweet strains, we spared the lyrists of Scotland, the linnet and the lark, the one in the yellow broom, the other beneath the rosy cloud-while there was ever a sevenfold red shield before Robin's breast, whether flitting silent as a falling leaf, or trilling his autumnal lay on the rigging or pointed gable-end of barn or brye. Now and then the large bunting, conspicuous on a toptwig, and proud of his rustic psalmody, tempted his own doom-or the cunning stone-chat, glancing about the old dikes usually shot at in vain-or yellow-hammer, under the ban of the national superstition, with a drop of the devil's blood beneath his pretty crest, pretty in spite of that cruel creed-or green-finch, too rich in plumage for his poorer song-or shilfa, the beautiful nest-builder, shivering his whiteplumed wings in shade and sunshine, in joy the most rapturous, in grief the most despairing of all the creatures of the air-or redpole, balanced on the down of the thistle or flower of the bunweed on the old clovery lea-or, haply twice seen in a season, the very goldfinch himself, a radiant and gorgeous spirit brought on the breeze from afar, and worthy, if only slightly wounded, of being enclosed within a silver cage from Fairy Land.

Not a boy in the school had a game certificate-or, as it was called in the parish-"a leeshance." Nor, for a year or two, was such a permit necessary; as we confined ourselves almost exclusively to sparrows. Not that we had any personal animosity to the sparrow individually on the contrary, we loved him, and had a tame one-a fellow of infinite fancy -with comb and wattles of crimson cloth like But we waxed more ambitious as we grew a gamecock. But their numbers, without old-and then wo to the rookery on the elmnumber numberless, seemed to justify the hu- tree grove! Down dropt the dark denizens in manest of boys in killing any quantity of dozens, rebounding with a thud and a skraigh sprauchs. Why, they would sometimes settle from the velvet moss, which under that umon the clipped half-thorn and half-beech hedge brage formed firm floor for Titania's feetof the Manse garden in myriads, midge-like; while others kept dangling dead or dying by and then out any two of us, whose day it hap- the claws, cheating the crusted pie, and all the pened to be, used to sally with Muckle-mou'd blue skies above were intercepted by cawing Meg and the Lang Gun, charged two hands and clouds of distracted parents, now dipping down a finger; and with a loud shout, startling them in despair almost within a shot, and now, as from their roost like the sudden casting of a if sick of this world, soaring away up into the swarm of bees, we let drive into the whir-a very heavens, and disappearing to return no shower of feathers was instantly seen swim-more-till sunset should bring silence, and the ming in the air, and flower-bed and onion bed covered with scores of the mortally wounded old cocks with black heads, old hens with brown, and the pride of the eaves laid low before their first crop of peas! Never was there such a parish for sparrows. You had but to fling a stone into any stack-yard, and up rose a sprauch-shower. The thatch of every cottage was drilled by them like honey-combs. Housespouts were of no use in rainy weather-for dey were all choked up by sprauch-nests. At

night air roll off the horrid smell of sulphur from the desolated bowers; and then indeed would they come all flying back upon their strong instinct, like black-sailed barks before the wind, some from the depth of far-off firwoods, where they had lain quacking at the ceaseless cannonade, some from the furrows of the new-braided fields aloof on the uplands, some from deep dell close at hand, and some from the middle of the moorish wilderness.

Happiest of all human homes, beautiful

brightness of her contentment; through the heaviest flood the blue skies will still be making their appearance with an impatient smile, and all the rivers and burns, with the multitude of their various voices, sing praises unto Heaven.

Craig-Hall! For so even now dost thou ap-| pear to be in the rich, deep, mellow, green light of imagination trembling on tower and tree-art thou yet undilapidated and undecayed, in thy old manorial solemnity almost majestical, though even then thou hadst long been tenanted but by an humble farmer's family- Therefore, bathing our feet in beauty, we people of low degree? The evening-festival went bounding over the flowery fields and of the First Day of the Rooks-nay, scoff not broomy braes to the grove-girdled Craig-Hall. at such an anniversary-was still held in thy During the long noisy day, we thought not of ample kitchen-of old the bower of brave lords the coming evening, happy as we knew it was and ladies bright-while the harper, as he sung to be; and during the long and almost as noisy his song of love or war, kept his eyes fixed on evening, we forgot all the pastime of the day. her who sat beneath the deas. The days of Weeks before, had each of us engaged his chivalry were gone-and the days had come partner for the first country dance, by right of curds and cream, and, preferred by some his own when supper came, and to sit close to people though not by us, of cream-cheese. Old him with her tender side, with waist at first men and old women, widowers and widows, stealthily arm-encircled, and at last boldly and yet all alike cheerful and chatty at a great age, almost with proud display. In the churchyard, for often as they near the dead, how more life- before or after Sabbath-service, a word whislike seem the living! Middle-aged men and pered into the ear of blooming and blushing middle-aged women, husbands and wives, those rustic sufficed; or if that opportunity failed, sedate, with hair combed straight on their fore- the angler had but to step into her father's heads, sun-burnt faces, and horny hands esta- burn-side cottage, and with the contents of his blished on their knees-these serene, with basket leave a tender request, and from becountenances many of them not unlovely-hind the gable-end carry away a word, a smile, comely all-and with arms decently folded a kiss, and a waving farewell. beneath their matronly bosoms-as they sat in Many a high-roofed hall have we, since those their holyday dresses, feeling as if the season days, seen, made beautiful with festoons and of youth had hardly yet flown by, or were, on garlands, beneath the hand of taste and genius such a merry meeting, for a blink restored! decorating, for some splendid festival, the abode Boys and virgins-those bold even in their of the noble expecting a still nobler guest. But bashfulness-these blushing whenever eyes oh! what pure bliss, and what profound, was met eyes-nor would they-nor could they then breathed into the bosom of boyhood from have spoken in the hush to save their souls; that glorious branch of hawthorn, in the chimyet ere the evening star arose, many a pretty ney-itself almost a tree, so thick-so deepmaiden had, down looking and playing with so rich its load of blossoms-so like its frathe hem of her garment, sung linnet-like her grance to something breathed from heavenain favourite auld Scottish sang! and many a and so transitory in its sweetness too, that as sweet sang even then delighted Scotia's spirit, she approached to inhale it, down fell many a though Robin Burns was but a youth-walking snow-flake to the virgin's breath-in an hour mute among the wild-flowers on the moor-all melted quite away! No broom that now-anor aware of the immortal melodies soon to breathe from his impassioned heart!

days grows on the brae, so yellow as the broom -the golden broom-the broom that seemed still Of all the year's holydays, not even except- to keep the hills in sunlight long after the sun ing the First of May, this was the most delight- himself had sunk-the broom in which we first ful. The First of May, longed for so passion- found the lintwhite's nest-and of its petals, ately from the first peep of the primrose, more precious than pearls, saw framed as. sometimes came deformed with mist and wreath for the dark hair of that dark-eyed cloud, or cheerless with whistling winds, girl, an orphan, and melancholy even in her or winter-like with a sudden fall of snow. merriment-dark-haired and dark-eyed indeed, And thus all our hopes were dashed-the but whose forehead, whose bosom, were yet roomy hay-wagon remained in its shed-whiter than the driven snow. Greenhousesthe preparations made for us in the distant conservatories-orangeries-are exquisitely moorland farmhouse were vain-the fishing- balmy still-and, in presence of these strange rods hung useless on the nails-and disconsolate schoolboys sat moping in corners, sorry, ashamed, and angry with Scotland's springs. But though the "leafy month of June" be frequently showery, it is almost always sunny too. Every half hour there is such a radiant blink that the young heart sings aloud for joy; sum-ing of the tomb. But oh! that Craig-Hall hawmer rain makes the hair grow, and hats are little or no use towards the Longest Day; there is something cheerful even in thunder, if it be not rather too near; the lark has not yet ceased altogether to sing, for he soars over his second nest, unappalled beneath the sablest cloud; the green earth repels from her refulgent bosom the blackest shadows, nor will suffer herself to be saddened in the fulness and

plants, one could believe that he had been transported to some rich foreign clime. But now we carry the burden of our years along with us-and that consciousness bedims the blossoms, and makes mournful the balm, as from flowers in some fair burial-place, breath

thorn! and oh! that Craig-Hall broom! they send their sweet rich scent so far into the hushed air of memory, that all the weary wornout weaknesses of age drop from us like a garment, and even now-the flight of that swallow seems more aerial-more alive with bliss his clay-built nest-the ancient long-ago blue of the sky returns to heaven-not for many a, many a long year have we seen so fair-so frail-so