Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 101.djvu/181

Rh strikes nine, while his companions are yet at blindman's-buff—and puffed up every Sabbath-eve by the Parson's praises of his uncommon memory for a sermon—while all the other boys are scolded for haying fallen asleep before Tenthly? You would not wish him, sorely, to write sermons himself at his tender years, nay—even to be able to give you chapter and verse for every quotation from the Bible? No. Better far that he should begin early to break your heart, by taking no care even of his Sunday clothes—blotting his copy—impiously pinning pieces of paper to the Dominie's tail, who to him was a second father—going to the fishing not only without leave but against orders—bathing in the forbidden pool, where the tailor was drowned—drying powder before the school-room fire, and blowing himself and two crack-skulled cronies to the ceiling—tying kettles to the tails of dogs—shooting an old woman's laying hen—galloping bare-backed shelties down stony steeps," &c., &c., &c.,—all this being à propos of schoolboys' cat-hunting, a sport in which w are told Wilson indulged largely in his Highland school-days, under Dr. Intyre, of Glenorchy, and which even Christopher in his sporting-jacket could not refer to without renewal of the ancient fire, so that he launches out into full details of the chase,—puss stretching herself up with crooked back, as if taking a yawn, — then off, with tremendous spangs, and tail, thickened with fear and anger, perpendicular—while yoof! youf! youf! go the terriers, head over heels perhaps in their fury, and soon bringing her to bay at the hedge-root, all ablaze and abristle. "A she-devil incarnate!—Hark, all at once now strikes up a trio—Catalani caterwauling the treble—Glowerer taking the bass—and Tearer the tenor—a cruel concert cut short by a squalliug throttler. Away—away along the holm—and over the knowe—and into the wood—for lo! the gudewife, brandishing a besom, comes flying demented without her mutch, down to the murder of her tabby,—her son, a stout stripling, is seen skirting the potato-field to intercept our flight,—and, most formidable of all, the Man of the House himself, in his shirt-sleeves and flail in his hand, bolts from the barn, down the croft, across the burn, and up the brae, to cut us off from the Manse. The hunt's up—and 'tis a capital steeple-chase. Disperse—disperse! Down the hill, Jack—up the hill, Gill—dive the dell, Kit—thread the wood, Pat—a hundred yards' start is a great matter—a stern chase is always a long chase—schoolboys are generally in prime wind—the old man begins to puff, and blow, and snort, and put his paws to his paunch—the son is thrown out by a double of dainty Davy's—and the 'sair begrutten mither' is gathering up the torn and tattered remains of Tortoise-shell Tabby, and invoking the vengeance of heaven and earth on her pitiless murderers." From which picturesque bit of felicide, the narrator, by one of his abrupt transitions, turns to bid alarmed and reverend seniors fear not for the boy hunters, but trust to the genial, gracious, and benign vis medicatrix naturae, and believe, though a few clouds may bedim and deformthat splendid will be, nevertheless, the meridian ether; and that although the waters of the sullen fen seems to pollute the snow of the swan, they fall off from her expanded wings, when, pure as a spirit, she soars away, and descends into her own silver lake, stainless as the water-lilies floating