one of them, a leap would take me to the other side, when two keepers
sprang from an ambush upon me: one knocked me down, and proceeded to
inflict a severe horse-whipping. I started up--a knife was in my grasp; I
made a plunge at his raised right arm, and inflicted a deep, wide wound in
his hand. The rage and yells of the wounded man, the howling execrations of
his comrade, which I answered with equal bitterness and fury, echoed
through the dell; morning broke more and more, ill accordant in its
celestial beauty with our brute and noisy contest. I and my enemy were
still struggling, when the wounded man exclaimed, "The Earl!" I sprang out
of the herculean hold of the keeper, panting from my exertions; I cast
furious glances on my persecutors, and placing myself with my back to a
tree, resolved to defend myself to the last. My garments were torn, and
they, as well as my hands, were stained with the blood of the man I had
wounded; one hand grasped the dead birds--my hard-earned prey, the other
held the knife; my hair was matted; my face besmeared with the same guilty
signs that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched;
my whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was in
form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian that
ever trod the earth.

The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood that
warmed my heart to rush into my cheeks; I had never seen him before; I
figured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take me to task, if
he deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of superiority. My reply
was ready; a reproach I deemed calculated to sting his very heart. He came
up the while; and his appearance blew aside, with gentle western breath, my
cloudy wrath: a tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy expressive of the
excess of sensibility and refinement stood before me; the morning sunbeams
tinged with gold his silken hair, and spread light and glory over his
beaming countenance. "How is this?" he cried. The men eagerly began their