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as he could like a wolf who would be very particular in paying such rites, and said, We, mourning to see so sad a spectacle, as shocking to mortality, put them out of sight as soon as possible, and

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Did cover them with leaves.'» He did not say of what sort ; we could and if we would: but see John Hunter passim,in verbum “ MANYPLIES."

True to the old liking, not forgotten since yesterday, his companions licked their lips, and with longing, lingering looks fixed their watering eyes on two lambs-luncheons for two-who would come in front ; and hoped they might never meet so sad a fate. The hypocrites !

• This loss of valuable lives this little war--these deaths in dribbling detail,” the grey Wolf continued, “must be brought to a conclusion in some way or other ; or you sheep, like us wolves, will hear the awful voice of a prophet among you, crying • Beware, the time is coming when every man's hand shall be against you, unless ye repent, and forsake the evil of your ways! there was a strong sensation among these simple ones, much consternation, and strange looking into one another's faces, as who should say, “May not this be so ? Speaks he not like a soothsayer? or like a seer among our shepherds gifted with second

When they turned to him again from communing together, he observed that they looked upon him with a more respectful reverence than sheep had ever shown to wolves before ; he resumed. accordingly :-" There are but two ways to avert this dire calamity to the world—the extirpation of sheep as disturbers of the peace of society ; for this land was not made for sheep alone, nor for wolves, who have been warned in good time to remember this, and make themselves agreeable to their fellow-mortals, and be at peace with them.

There are two ways to bring this war between your races to a conclusion, and both are honourable. The one is a proposition, to be made by you, for a general peace He was silenced by a burst of bleating which seemed to shake the Very hills in their seats, the purport of which was, when translated, “No, no ; we won't hear a word of peace ; so don't mention it ! War to the death with the Lowlanders ! The Highlanders will never sue for peace! and such like clamours. Poor ovine nature, like human nature, it is pride-still pride--evermore pride! When their clamorous båă-băăing was out of breath, and ceased,

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he finished his sentence : or a general war!” and the uproar now was deafening. It was some minutes before he could obtain a hearing to add, “Not a little war—a war of outposts ---but a great and general war, which should bring these Lowlanders, numerous as they are, and insolent as they are, to beg for peace upon their bended knees ! And here there was another burst of bleating, accompanied by dancing and ungainly capering, as if the victory was already won, and they were wild with joy and exultation.

" What a time this would have been for lamb,' whispered one of the weird Wolves to his companion, who was thinking so too, “ if we had not forsworn flesh meats-for the nonce !" And, unobserved, again they licked their longing lips.

When this cry before they were out of the wood was over, Hypocrite the First went on with his palavering, like one who meant, as we say, to go in and win. Not only lambs, but wolves looked up, and saw no end of good eating, like a lord-mayor on his induction. “ You have had great provocations, I believe,” he said, “from this sleek, smug, snug, petty, pusillanimous race. have endured more injuries from these Lowlanders than you are conscious or thoughtful of ! We have observed—you have not--that there never was an instance known of one of your race who went south ever returning-ever coming back again to his native wilds, to tell the tale of his travels !”. They looked foolishly in each other's faces : it had never struck them : this was indeed the first time it had struck them, and it struck them dumb.

" What becomes of them," he continued, “it is not for me to say.

But one of our tribe, caught when a little, heedless, foolish cub, and sold into captivity, travelled through their country in a cage, till he escaped and found his way back to the forest : he tells us, and I believe the words of his mouth, though travellers are said to see and say strange things, that he has not only seen several of our skins, which these barbarians set great store by," and he seemed much affected for a moment, “but hundreds of the skins you wear, and which so well become you, carried out of the markets, a cartload at a time, with no more life in them-no more flesh and blood and bone-than there is under the lichen on one of these rocks

ying around us !” Here he was interrupted by irrepressible murmurs of horror; and a proper question to be put by the Duke of Limbs in his placehow did he know that they were Highland integuments ? “ By the wool -not to be mistaken," he was

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answered. “Yes; these Lowlanders look sleek, and fat, and fleshy, and well they may, when they feed as they do, the

no ; I will not utter the disgusting word! Learn this and you will think worse of shepherds than you

do: in some parts of the world there are shepherds who prey on shepherds, and think them good eating when baked with yams under them, and esteem them so done a dish for a king, or

His black Mandingo majesty's white minister of state!' Do you wonder, then, when sheep feed on sheep-Lowlanders fatten on lean Highlanders ? ' The

rage of these Highland Hotspurs was terrible to look upon. They were for an immediate descent upon these wretches, now while their indignation was at blood-heat. “Ridiculous!” said the

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Wolf. - Rashness! Madness! How many

of ye are there who can be called fighting rams ? Aye, it sounds well to hear young and old among ye cry All!' whether lambs or rams; but how few there are in this flock fitted for the strife! Not more than a dozen, at the most ; while these Lowlanders increase and multiply so fast in their fat folds, they can bring their thousands into the field, and eat ye up, and lick their plates, not half satisfied with such a snack !

But they should gather, the Highlanders said, as they rushed down, like an avalanche from the mountain-top in winter, and sweep, shatter, and scatter these soft-hearted, soft-headed, softhorned, craven creatures—a shame to the simple name of Sheeplike snow before the wind. No, no, he advised them as an admiring friend.

Let them nurse and hug their wrath, and keep it as warm as they could let the sun go down upon it—till winter came, and it was coming soon, and the first fall of snow was down: then they might, unseen in the thick mists of the long night, and unheard in the foot-silence of the snow-covered ground, rush on them in their separate folds, too far apart for warning and alarm, and crush them in detail. By that time the fine young fellows he had in his eye-an honour to the Highland race--would be fitter to fight by their fathers' side, and show the foe the mettle of their mountain-breeding. And here, casting his wicked eyes up to heaven, the canting old scoundrel for a wolf said, that grey hairs and great experience had made him a seer among his tribe ; and he foresaw the coming shortly of a seer among sheep, who would descend from the farther Alps, with such an array of rams mighty

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in war, the gathering of alpine clans they had never heard of, as should sweep these Lowlanders from the face of the earth, and give them their lands for an inheritance. Wait, he entreated them, wait till the hoary winter and the grey seer descend together from, their snow-crowned heights, and then fall upon the foe as suddenly as you please. By that time the lichen on which his people lived would be scanty in the mountains, and they would have migrated and moved down to the woods in the low country, to feed on the acorns, chestnuts, and beech-nuts which every blast that blows showers upon the ground, till spring calls them up to their old haunts again: so that his people would be at hand to advise and succour them, and be a friendly power, on whom they might fall back, if they failed in their enterprise, if that were possible.

Would the Wolves make common cause with them as allies, inquired a young ram, with a diplomatic turn of mind; but he was clamoured down directly. No, however much they must sympathize with the Highland race, as Highlanders themselves, the quarrel was no quarrel of theirs ; they had suffered no insults and endured no injuries from these Lowlanders. He consulted a moment with his companions, and then said that he could promise them so much aid as this, if they would accept it: that, as wolves were notoriously skilled in the healing art, and had performed wonders in the cure of wounds indeed, one lick of a wolf's tongue was a cure of all complaints of that kind in oxen and horses and asses--some of the most skilful of these Hunters should follow both armies indifferently, and attend on the maimed on either side, as a work of mercy and good hospital practice. He could promise no more than this assistance, at this present writing. Perhaps it would be as well to settle now what should be the password on the Highland side when the time came for their assistance ; for it would be dangerous to the wounded, and unhandsome treatment of their medical attendants, when two or more were met bearing some bleeding hero from the field to the rear, if they were challenged and arrested in their benevolent work. arranged that Båå,short, should be the password on the one side ; of course,

Bää," long, would be that of the other. So far, so good, said the grey Wolf to his coadjutors, giving the slightest perceptible turn of his tongue in his cheek. When lichen failed, there was every likelihood of a glut of fools ; and, by a beautiful provision of Nature, the more foolish the bird, the better the fowl for gustation. Thus, while the craftier kind of creatures

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are not easily taken, such as wolves, foxes, and the like, and are not worth taking, because they are bad eating, geese, and sheep, and such small deer, simple souls! are as gullible as they are good eating.

Enough,” said the gaunt Wolf, with a smile--such a smile ! at the success of his embassy. “ Be wise, be secret, letting not your shepherds know a tittle of your designs, and possess yourselves with patience till the hour and the leader come. The

grey mist of the morning melts away, and shows tliese aged eyes, not so good as they were, but still far-seeing, the long shadows of two stalwart shepherds, and about the same number of dogs, faithful followers ! stalking this way from the Eastern hills. We must not be seen, though messengers of mercy, or something injurious to us and you will be suspected. It is a scandalous world! Give wolf an ill name, and

you may spare yourself the trouble for life of thinking well of him. Farewell, good friends, farewell ; till we meet again in the Lowlands, farewell!” And after a few hurried civilities on both sides, these reverend Rambassadors went off in an opposite direction to the shepherds : at first, slowly, gravely, and dignifiedly as aldermen enter our Guildhall when dinner is announced to be on the table ; increasing their pace as they proceed from a slow movement to a quick step, and then a rush in,

“ As fools rush in, where angels fear to tread." For, whether the early morning mountain air was cold, and it was

“ a nipping and an eager air ;' or whether it was past their time for breakfast, from a good walking pace they got into a trot; and, as they shook off the stiffness of age, into a headlong gallop down hill—the devil take the hindmost ; and this they kept up with great spirit, good speed, and good wind for old wolves, till they disappeared in the dense forest on the neutral ground.

Early in the winter, when the snow lay unusually deep in the windy Highlands, and in the sheltered Lowlands deeper and deeper still, the promised seer came down from the Alps in the grey of the evening--a long, lank, flat-sided, ungainly, unmuttonly ram to look at

-a sheep who could not look sheep in the face. And he came not alone : for he was accompanied by from five to six hundred followers ; some as shy, sly, and unhandsome as himself these were, doubtless, specimens of the Alpine sheep they had

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