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
hand to his ear, and with a "hark forward, tan-tivy!" leaves him to
remount, lame and at leisure--and ere the fallen has risen and shook
himself, is round the corner of the white village-church, down the dell,
over the brook, and close on the heels of the straining pack, all a-yell
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 windows in a
still room, the clergyman in the 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
branches 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 banks unscaleable by the very Welsh goat; let duke's or
earl's son go sheer over a quarry fifty 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, now strong as
stink, 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 in the general growl; and smug, and smooth, and dry, and
warm, and cozey, as he was an hour and twenty-five minutes ago exactly,