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 themthe 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.