"Listen; and
if you believe that a schoolmaster can make a quicker wit than the
Lord, you shall be made to see how much you're mistaken. Do you not
hear something move in the brake? it has been cracking the twigs these
five minutes. Now tell me what the creatur' is?"
"I hope nothing ferocious!" exclaimed the Doctor, who still retained a
lively impression of his {rencounter} with the vespertilio horribilis.
"You have rifles, friends; would it not be prudent to prime them? for
this fowling piece of mine is little to be depended on."
"There may be reason in what he says," returned the trapper, so far
complying as to take his piece from the place where it had lain during
the repast, and raising its muzzle in the air. "Now tell me the name
of the creatur'?"
"It exceeds the limits of earthly knowledge! Buffon himself could not
tell whether the animal was a quadruped, or of the order, serpens! a
sheep, or a tiger!"
"Then was your buffoon a fool to my Hector! Here: pup!--What is it,
dog?--Shall we run it down, pup--or shall we let it pass?"
The hound, which had already manifested to the experienced trapper, by
the tremulous motion of his ears, his consciousness of the proximity
of a strange animal, lifted his head from his fore paws and slightly
parted his lips, as if about to show the remnants of his teeth.
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