ower to flee away.
But we must away to Sir Reynard's hall, and unsough him; this we can
do with less sorrowful feelings than killing a deer, which indeed,
is like taking the life of a brother or a sister; but as to a fox,
there is an old clow-jewdaism about him, that makes me feel like
passing Petticoat-lane or Monmouth-street, or that sink of iniquity,
Holy-well-street. O, the cunning, side-walking, side-long-glancing,
corner-peeping, hang-dog-looking, stolen-goods-receiving knave;
"Christian dog" can hold no sympathy with thee, so have at thee.
Ah, here is his hold, a perfect Waterloo of bones.
"The banes o' my bonnie Toop, a prayer of vengeance for that; an' Sandy
Scott's twa-yir-auld gimmer, marterdum for that." "An' my braxsied
wether," quoth a forester; "the rack for that, and finally the auld
spay-wife's bantam cock, eyes and tongue cut out and set adrift again,
for that." Now we set to work to clear his hole for "rough Toby"
(a long-backed, short-legged, wire-haired terrier of Dandy Dinmont's
breed) to enter; in he went like red-hot fire, and "ready to nose the
vary deevil himsel sud he meet him," as Jammie Hogg said; and to see
the chattering anxiety of the red-coated monkey, as he sat at the mouth
of the fox-hole, on his shaggy, grizzle-grey shadow of a horse, like a
mounted guardsman in the hole yonder at St. James's; it truly would have
made a "pudding creep" with laughter--"Reek, reek, reeking into th' hole
after Toby, with his we we cunnin, pinkin, glimmerin een, an' catchin
him 'bith stump o' th' tail as he were gooin in an' handing as long as
he could," as James said. O, it was a very caricature of a caricature.
But list, I hear them scuffle, they are coming out. Notice the monkey
shaking his "bit staff;" here they come like a chimney swept in a hurry,
they are out. "What a gernin, glowerin, sneerin, deevilitch leuk can a
tod gie when hee's keepit at bay just afore he slinks off," exclaimed
the poet, as Reynard was stealing away; but yonder they go before the
wind, down the sweeping, outstretched glen, like smoke in a blast.
Ay, there they go, two stag hounds, monkey, and grew, and Toby yelping
behind; what a view we have of them--the grew is too fleet for him, he
turns him and keeps him at bay till the hounds come up; now they are
off again, and now we lose them, vanished like the shadow of a dream.
We followed, and on our way we met a herdsman, with his eyes staring
like two bullets stuck in clay,
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