ird, and therefore to be held sacred, but shot at
on the excuse of its being next to impossible to hit him--an opinion
strengthened into belief by several summers' practice. But the small
brown and white marten wheeling through below the bridge, or along the
many-holed red sand-bank, is admitted by all boys to be fair game--and
still more, the long-winged legless black devilet, that, if it falls to
the ground, cannot rise again, and therefore screams wheeling round the
corners and battlements of towers and castles, or far out even of
cannon-shot, gambols in companies of hundreds, and regiments of a
thousand, aloft in the evening ether, within the orbit of the eagle's
flight. It seems to boyish eyes that the creatures near the earth, when
but little blue sky is seen between the specks and the wallflowers
growing on the coign of vantage: the signal is given to fire; but the
devilets are too high in heaven to smell the sulphur. The starling whips
with a shrill cry into his nest, and nothing falls to the ground but a
tiny bit of mossy mortar, inhabited by a spider!

But the Day of Days arrives at last, when the schoolboy, or rather the
college boy, returning to his rural vacation (for in Scotland college
winters tread close, too close, on the heels of academies), has a gun--a
gun in a case--a double-barrel too--of his own--and is provided with a
licence, probably without any other qualification than that of hit or
miss. On some portentous morning he effulges with the sun in velveteen
jacket and breeches of the same--many-buttoned gaiters, and an
unkerchiefed throat. 'Tis the fourteenth of September, and lo! a
pointer at his heels--Ponto, of course--a game-bag like a beggar's
wallet at his side--destined to be at eve as full of charity--and all
the paraphernalia of an accomplished sportsman. Proud, were she to see
the sight, would be the "mother that bore him;" the heart of that old
sportsman, his daddy, would sing for joy! The chained mastiff in the
yard yowls his admiration; the servant lasses uplift the pane of their
garret, and, with suddenly withdrawn blushes, titter their delight in
their rich paper curls and pure night-clothes. Rab Roger, who has been
cleaning out the barn, comes forth to partake of the caulker; and away
go the footsteps of the old poacher and his pupil through the autumnal
rime, off to the uplands, where--for it is one of the earliest of
harvests--there is scarcely a single acre of standing corn. The