It was a sound as of some one moving stealthily among the bushes, close beside me, followed by a kind of tiny groan.

"I listened attentively; but all I could hear was the wind, and its sweeping rush, high over the treetops, and presently the bark of a dog, faint, and far, far away. It was most lonely, and the fumes of the liquor I had had overnight, being now completely dissipated, I began to feel wofully desolate and at a loss.

I had once more fallen away into cogitation, when directly I heard again the sound that had formerly disturbed me. It was now plainer, and appeared to be a kind of sputtering among the brushwood, and again there was the small cheeping infantile cry. My curiosity was now fairly roused, and summoning up all the fortitude I could command, I moved towards the spot it came from-step by step-after looking round to make sure of a clear retreat, while, at the same time, my heart was going, thump, thump, against my ribs, every beat vibrating up to my throat.

Presently the moon shone out brightly for a moment, between two passing clouds, and by the aid of a few beams penetrating under the foliage, I was enabled to perceive a hare, caught by the leg in a snare of brasswire, planted very nicely in the interstice between two thick bramblebushes.

My eye-here was a discovery! I paused a little, looking at the struggling animal.

"What shall I do with it?" thought I.

I took the creature up, kicking and spurring, into my arms. As I did so, I felt its little heart beating, and its breath panting away, as my own had been a few minutes before. My first resolution was magnani

mous.

"I shall set it free," said I. "Go, poor wanderer of the wood and wild-liberty's a glorious feast!"

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"So is haresoup!" said a still, small voice within me; not from my heart, I fear, but rather from the region of the stomach. "And Nancy at the Hen and Hatchet can cook it like an angel-and then with this tail to it," said I, in continuation, "the adventure will bear telling; they can hardly laugh with their mouths full of soup. Puss," now I turned to the trembler in my arms, "it's all up with you-prepare for death-had you as many lives as your namesake, you should die and be turned to soup ;" and here I began to ponder how I should commit the murder.

Shifting the noose from its leg to its neck, I hauled tight, and waited to see it give up the ghost. But here certain rather unaccountable escapes I had had from drowning rose up in my mind, and a strange fellow-feeling possessed me.

"No, puss," said I, "you shall not be hung," and I groped in my pockets for a knife.

But as the reader is in possession of the inventory of their contents, he will at once be aware that such an instrument was not come-at-able. The lancets, however, obtruded themselves upon my hand, and I drew forth one of them from the case, and began digging about with it, sounding for poor puss's carotid artery. But as this mode of procedure

seemed hardly more speedy or effectual than the former, I put the instrument into puss's medulla oblongata, at the back of her head, when she immediately stretched herself out, and certainly died game. And I forthwith stuffed her body into one of the capacious pockets of my surtout.

But judge of my dismay when at this moment I heard two voices whispering together, apparently not many yards from my side. I stood rooted to the spot, and once more did absorbing terror take possession of me.

What was I to do now? Was it the poachers that had set the snare, or the keepers that were searching for it? What would be my fate in either case? For a moment my presence of mind and confidence in myself forsook me, and I gave myself up for lost; but the next instant they rallied, and I looked about for a way of escape.

I was close to the foot of a tree-reaching up my hand I touched a branch-it felt elastic, but secure. Catching hold of this I slowly and gradually swung myself up, till I got my chest, and then my leg, upon it, and immediately I felt myself safe once more. I climbed a branch or two higher into the tree, and waited, though with a beating heart, for whatever was coming.

I now heard as if the owners of the voices were moving slowly from place to place among the brushwood. There were intervals of silence, and then the whispering and talking would begin, and anon there was a sound of footsteps, picked slowly, and with groping among the bushes. After shifting about, hither and thither, they at length came to the root of the tree right under where I sat. I could dimly discern two figures, one of them a very large man, and the other a boy. This fact was further certified by the voices; one being gruff and harsh, and with difficulty subdued to a whisper, the other childish and piping. I held my breath as the man stooped and groped about where I had caught the hare.

He searched for a little and then apparently getting hold of the torn and disarranged snare, he gave vent to a broadside of oaths, which prefaced the following speech.

"What the

has been to do here, Jerry-has this been a tod,* or a brock, or a dog?"

"What's out now, father?" said the other.

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Why the girn I set here last night is all knocked to the devil"— here an oath or two-" I'll have to stay and set it up again-so off you go home with what you have got; and mind you go through the wood, and up by the hunter's cairn-and don't be sneaking away by the holm and tell Madge to have the trouts fried for me-do you hear?"

The boy went away, and as he went I thought I could see a dim something, like a large bundle, slung over his shoulder. The old chap continued to stoop, now humming a scrap of a tune, and now muttering an imprecation, as he appeared to be twisting the wires once more into a trap.

* Fox.

+ Badger.

+ Noosed trap.

I was sitting perched above him, waiting with the utmost anxiety for his departure, and praying Heaven my situation was not as plain to him as his was to me, when I heard a distant whistle from the direction of the park. He started to his feet, and stood motionless.

The whistle was repeated; there was a pattering as of small feet scampering over the grass, a loud abrupt barking, rising into a fierce snarling yell, and a dog sprang at his throat. But immediately there was a sound as of a heavy body dashed violently against the stem of the tree-I felt the blow thrill up to the branch I sat on, and the dog lay a couple of paces off, with its back broken, writhing upon the grass, and howling and yelping with agony.

The whistle sounded once more, accompanied by a loud cry of "Here, Viper, Viper!" and presently came a noise of footsteps, rapidly hurrying up, then pressing through the brushwood beneath me.

A bright glare of light was now flashed upon the trapper, evidently from a dark lantern carried by the stranger, and I had a perfect view of him. He was about the middle height, with an exceedingly large, heavy body, and short, thick legs, a little bowed outwards. His chest was very broad-his arms long and extremely muscular. He had a short, bull neck, and a large broad face, with coarse features, and bushy, dark eyebrows and whiskers. His head was bald, the white shining crown contrasting strongly with the deep, burnt, brown hue of his face. He stood with his fists doubled up in an attitude of defence, one of them being raised to shield his eyes from the light. At his feet lay the plaited wire of the snare, and a heavy broad cap of blue worsted stuff that had fallen from his head.

"Have I caught you at last ?" said the stranger.

Yes, and you'll find me nothing but a Tartar." "Its no use-you must go down to the house."

"If I do, you'll have to carry me."

And laughing in defiance, he made a sudden kick with his foot, and dashed the lantern to the ground. I thought it was extinguished, but it was only broken; and the oil, escaping among the dry leaves, and catching fire from the wick, immediately shot up a bright flame, throwing a red, unearthly sort of light on every object around for a few paces back-all beyond that being shrouded in a pall of thick darkness. The new comer, whom I could now see plainly, appeared from his dress to be an under-gamekeeper, or some such character. He was considerably taller than the other, very well made, and also an exceedingly pow erful man. He had a gun in his hands, but it was evidently not loaded for he held it clubwise, ready to strike down with the butt. "Will you come quietly, or must I fetch you?" said he.

"Fetch and be was the reply; and the poacher sprang at him. He raised the gun, and it would have descended with fearful force on his antagonist's skull, but that it struck against the branch of the tree overhead, the very one by which I had swung myself up to my present position. The next instant both had grappled together, and a fierce struggle ensued, accompanied with curses, and hideous epithets applied to each other.

It was a most strange and terrific scene altogether. These two men of gigantic strength, locked in furious strife, their faces giving expression to every mad passion, while the red flame from the broken lantern threw its ruddy phantasmagorial glare upon them, making them look like fiends contending amid a region of fire.

I watched them with fearful yet absorbing attention, with feelings of awe, dread, and overpowering curiosity, tumultuous and scarcely bearable. I marked their sweating brows and straining muscles as they struggled hither and thither, now one, now the other seeming to have the advantage. I hearkened to their labouring breath, to their oaths, and horrible threats and denunciations; while, to add to the wildness of the picture, the dog, broken-backed and powerless, lay wriggling about on the grass close by, its eyes gleaming with pain and rage, barking and yelling from out of its foaming mouth, a fearful accompaniment to the conflict.

At once the gun, which appeared to be the immediate object of contention, flew from between them, and fell among the bushes a little to one side, while at the same moment a heavy blow was dealt upon the throat of the poacher, and he staggered back. It was but an instant, however, for the next he rushed upon his opponent with renewed ferocity, and they were again joined in mutual strife.

"You banished my boy!" was ground out from the compressed lips of the trapper.

"Yes, and I'll send you after the cub-if I don't" an oath completed the sentence.

A bitter laugh was the response, accompanied by a powerful wrench of the other's body, that appeared almost to bend him double. He stood it out, however, and returned it by a second blow, dealt with his whole strength upon his opponent's neck. But in the act of doing this, he had laid himself fearfully open to him. The poacher grasped him at once round the middle, and, twisting him like a sapling across his haunch, with a wild cry of triumph, leaped high into the air, and they fell heavily to the ground, the keeper undermost and he over him, with his knee sunk into his stomach.

“Now,” he cried out, “I'll make an end of this,—you have been the curse of my life-I'll be the finisher of yours."

But the keeper shortly appeared to recover from the stunning effects of his fall, and, grappling at his throat, struggled violently.

I thought he would once have changed places with him, but the poacher maintained his advantage and kept him down. After a while, grasping for breath, he gave up the attempt.

"Let me up, Nathan," he said, "I will let you go."

A laugh of derision was the answer, as after several tremendous blows, knocked into his face, his adversary, while he held him down with one hand, thrust the other into a side-pocket, and drew forth a large claspknife. When the prostrate man saw this, he screamed aloud, and made another desperate attempt to dislodge him as he sat upon his chest, but without avail.

"Nathan-Nathan, don't murder me,-have mercy!"

"What mercy had you on my son that you banished ?—eh, Judas ?” “Oh, Nathan! spare my life-mind when we were boys together!" "Ay, and do you mind when we were men together?"

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Yes, Nathan, I have been your rain. I own it—but spare me in mercy -we are old men now-don't take my life!"

"If I don't, may God take mine! Ours has been a lifelong quarrel, and only death can end it. Think on Alice Woodward now,—I would have made her an honest woman-you made her a ——————-”

Yes! you may rob a man of all his possessions, and in time he will forget and forgive; but come between him and her he loves, and he will pursue you to the grave. If one insult you, wound you, deprive you of your nearest friend, of your child even, your very first-born, it is possible to pardon to pray for him. But he has brought to ruin the woman your heart loves-her whom your fond youth idolized-who was the star of your hopes for this world and the next! Can you forgive ?—is it in man's erring nature?

While the dialogue went on, they struggled much, the brawny poacher holding down his victim, partly by pressing his chest against his, and partly with his left hand, which grasped his throat. The knife he held in his right, making attempts to open it with his teeth, but desisting at intervals to utter the sentences above related. At length he got the blade partly open, when the keeper, by a desperate wrench, catching hold of his wrist, the spring went off, and with a loud snap the blade darted into its haft, making a hideous slanting gash in his under lip, half severing it from the lower jaw.

The warm blood spurted over their hands and faces, a kind of thin tiny vapour rising from it in the cold night air. The wounded man tossed his head spasmodically back, and uttered a wild snorting groan of intense agony.

All this was shown me by the red, flickering, flaring light from the lantern, which was now beginning to die out. It was indeed a scene such as a man may be horrified with once in a lifetime. I looked down in a paroxysm of interest and wonder, curiosity and dread. I lost all consciousness of my own situation, and seemed to have become part and parcel of the deadly strife below. I kept craning forward, and stretching and twisting myself to get a complete view, when just as the poacher had, with both his hands, succeeded in opening the knife, and with a savage yell was waving it in the air prior to plunging it into the throat of his adversary, whose loud and despairing cry of "Murder!" was that moment piercing my ears, a small branch, to which in leaning forward I had committed my whole weight, snapped suddenly, and I was precipitated a height of ten feet right down upon them, and we rolled over and over, extinguishing the flame of the lantern in the confusion.

And now ensued a scatter-a regular panic seemed to have possessed the combatants. As for myself, I can avow I was never in such a mania of fear in my life. In a moment we were on our legs, and flying like the wind in different directions. One-the poacher probably-rushed crushing and tearing through the bushes, and was lost among the trees; the other fled along the avenue; whilst I putting trust in a pair