ame plump down upon
it and nailed him to the ground in the most effectual manner. In vain he
screamed and pulled; the weight was heavier than he could get rid of;
and the more he pulled and screamed, the greater was Snub's delight, who
capered round him, wagging his own tail with wonderful swiftness in the
intensity of his satisfaction.

After having kept him a prisoner for a good hour, and forced him to
confess that he had led us into the wood with the intention of robbing
us, and even worse, Snub cut a piece of cord from off the box and tying
it round Mr. Fox's neck, and then fast to the trunk again, lifted the
latter on to his head, and ordered the treacherous guide, under penalty
of instant death, to lead us back at once to the place we had started
from. The wounded beast was forced to obey; so taking his mutilated tail
in his paw, with a thousand apologies,--to which Snub made no other
reply than to bid him to "look sharp" (a very unnecessary piece of
advice, as his face could scarce have been sharper than it was), and to
which I made no answer at all,--he walked on in front of us, keeping at
as great a distance from his tormentor as the length of the cord would
allow him.

We reached, after some time, the place where we had entered the wood,
when Snub, advising our polite conductor to be more honest for the
future, undid the knot which bound him to the trunk and set him again
at liberty. The Fox no sooner found himself free, than, with a cry of
satisfaction, anger, and defeated wickedness, he darted back among the
trees, and was instantly out of sight.

LIFE ABROAD.

The first adventure that one meets with on entering the world is certain
to make a deeper impression on the memory than any of those which may
succeed it. Thus it was that I have a distinct recollection of our
meeting with Mr. Fox, described in the last Chapter, and all the minute
circumstances that attended the discovery of his treachery and his
punishment by Snub. But from that time, a confusion of objects and
events rushes into my brain when I attempt to think over the particulars
of my journey.

The beautiful pictures of Nature, which almost every turn on the road
presented to me, are however indelibly fixed in my memory, and I shall
never forget the loveliness of the sun rising from behind the grey
hills, and enriching the sober colours of the landscape with a tinge
of gold; or the splendid spectacle displayed from the summit of one