g.

There was a whole avalanche of dogs in attendance. A collie, rushing on
tumultuously in front; a "plum-pudding" dog between the wheels; a couple
of fox-terriers snapping joyfully at each other in the rear; and there
was also an ill-conditioned animal--half lurcher, half terrier--who
killed cats, and murdered fowls, and worried sheep, and flew at the
heels of unwary strangers; and was given, in short, to every sort of
canine iniquity, and who possessed but one redeeming feature in his
character--that of blind adoration to his master.

This animal, who followed uncle Tom whithersoever he went, came skurrying
out of the stables as the dog-cart drove off, and joined in the general
scamper.

Perhaps the dogs may have been too much for Clochette's nerves, or
perhaps the effort of behaving well as far as the park gates with those
horrible wheels rattling behind her was as much as any hunter born and
bred could be expected to do, or perhaps uncle Tom was too free with that
whip with which he caressed her shining flanks; but be that as it may, no
sooner was Clochette's head well turned along the straight high-road with
its high-tangled hedge-rows on either side than she began to show symptoms
of behaving very badly indeed. She bucked and pranced, and stood on her
hind legs; she whipped suddenly round, pirouetted upon her own axis with
the dexterity of a circus performer, and demonstrated very plainly that,
if she only dared, she would like to take to her heels in the reverse
direction to that which her driver desired her to go.

All this was, however, equally delightful and exciting both to Tom
Esterworth and his niece. There was no apprehension in Beatrice's mind,
for her uncle drove as well as he rode, and she felt perfectly secure in
the strong, supple hands that guided Clochette's erratic movements.

"There is not a kick in her," uncle Tom had said, as they started, and he
repeated the observation now; and kicking being out of the category of
Clochette's iniquities, there was nothing else to fear.

No sooner, however, had the words left his lips than a turn of the road
brought them within sight of a great volume of black smoke rushing slowly
but surely towards them; whilst a horrible roaring and howling, as of an
antediluvian monster in its wrath, filled the silence of the summer
afternoon with a hideous and unholy confusion.

Talk about there being no wild animals in our peaceful land! What
could have been the Me