, and passed the
night, some sixteen miles from home, in the rude hovel of a charcoal
burner.

"Greater excitement I cannot imagine, than that wild, independent
chase!--sometimes on foot, cheering the hounds through swamp and dingle,
over rough cliffs and ledges where foot of horse could avail nothing.
Sometimes on horseback, galloping merrily through the more open
woodlands. Sometimes careering in the flying sleigh, to the gay music of
its bells, along the wild wood-paths! Well did we fare, too--ay,
sumptuously!--for our outskirters, though they reserved their rifles for
the appropriate game, were not so sparing with the shot-gun; so that,
night after night, our chaldron reeked with the mingled steam of rabbit,
quail, and partridge, seethed up a la Meg Merrilies, with fat pork,
onions, and potatoes--by the Lord Harry! Frank, a glorious and unmatched
consummee.

"To make, however, a long tale short--for every day's work, although
varied to the actors by thousands of minute but unnarratable
particulars, would appear but as a repetition of the last, to the mere
listener--to make a long tale short, on the third day he doubled back,
took us directly over the same ground--and in the middle of the day, on
Saturday, was roused in view by the leading hounds, from the same little
swamp in which the five had harbored during the early winter. No man was
near the hounds when he broke covert. But fat Tom, who had been detached
from the party to bring up provisions from the village, was driving in
his sleigh steadily along the road, when the sharp chorus of the hounds
aroused him. A minute after, the lame scoundrel limped across the
turnpike, scant thirty yards before him. Alas! Tom had but his
double-barrel, one loaded with buck shot, the other merely prepared for
partridge--he blazed away, however, but in vain! Out came ten couple on
his track, hard after him; and old Tom, cursing his bad luck, stood to
survey the chase across the open.

"Strange was the felon's fate! The first fence, after he had crossed the
road, was full six feet in height, framed of huge split logs, piled so
close together that, save between the two topmost rails, a small dog
even could have found no passage. Full at this opening the wolf dashed,
as fresh, Tom said, as though he had not run a yard; but as he struggled
through it, his efforts shook the top rails from the yokes, and the huge
piece of timber falling across his loins, pinned him completely! At a