But, "with a mighty squelch," as the general phrased it, the major, with his twenty-two stone weight of flesh and bone, fell prone upon the fair, white, upturned belly of the tiger! Terrified, breathless, and bewildered by an antagonist so ponderous, and by such an unexpected mode of attack, the tiger started up, and fled from the scene, leaving the major untouched and unharmed, but seated ruefully among the jungle grass, and with considerable doubts as to his safety and his own identity. The parish minister fairly overmatched this story by the narrative of a fox which had been drowned by a mussel. Prior to being appointed pastor of Calderwood Kirk, through the favour of its patron, Sir Nigel, he had been an assistant in a parish situated on the borders of one of the great salt lochs in the western highlands. When riding one morning along the shore, opposite the Summer Isles, he was surprised to see a large grey fox busy among the basket-mussels, thick clusters of which were adhering to the dark whin rocks which the ebb tide had left dry. The sea was coming in fast; but, strange to say, Reynard seemed to be so much engaged in breakfasting on shell-fish that he was heedless of that important circumstance. Dismounting, and tying his horse to a tree, the minister made a circuit to reach the place, and being armed with a heavy-handled riding-whip, he had no fear of the encounter; but by the time he arrived at the mussel-beds, the rapid tide had overflowed them, and the fox had disappeared. So, remounting, the minister pursued his way into the mountains. Returning along the shore by the same path in the evening, when the tide had ebbed, he again saw Reynard in the same place, but lying quite dead, and, on examination, discovered that he was held fast by the tongue between the sharp shells of one of the basket-mussels, which are sometimes seven inches long, and adhere with intense strength to the rocks by the beard, known to the learned as a powerful _byssus_. Seized and retained thus, as if in the grasp of a steel vice, the fox, which had been in the habit of seeking the sea shore to feed on the mussels, had been held fast, until drowned by the advancing tide, which there flows rapidly in from the Atlantic. This story elicited roars of laughter from the fox-hunters, who had never heard of a brush being taken in such a fashion; and Berkeley expressed astonishment that the anecdote had never found its way into the columns of _Bell’s Life_, or other sporting journals. The provost and minister gabbled about presbyteries and synods, the moderation of calls, elders, deacons, and overtures to the General Assembly, anent sundry ecclesiastical matters, particularly the adoption of organs, and other innovations that savoured of prelacy, making up a jargon which, to many present, and even to me, proved quite unintelligible; but now, as a military man, old Rammerscales seized me by a button, for there was no eluding being bored by him.