“Yes, called him off,” pursued Miss Trafford, looking round for the necessary symptoms of our wonder at this very extraordinary incident. “What is the most remarkable,” said Lady Nelthorpe, “is, that though he seemed from his dress and appearance to be really a gentleman, he never stayed to ask if we were alarmed or hurt--scarcely even looked at us--” (“I don’t wonder at that!” said Mr. Wormwood, who, with Lord Vincent, had just entered the room;)--“and vanished among the rocks as suddenly as he had appeared.” “Oh, you’ve seen that fellow, have you?” said Lord Vincent: “so have I, and a devilish queer looking person he is,-- “‘The balls of his broad eyes roll’d in his head, And glar’d betwixt a yellow and a red; He looked a lion with a gloomy stare, And o’er his eyebrows hung his matted hair.’ “Well remembered, and better applied--eh, Mr. Pelham!” “Really,” said I, “I am not able to judge of the application, since I have not seen the hero.” “Oh! it’s admirable,” said Miss Trafford, “just the description I should have given of him in prose. But pray, where, when, and how did you see him?” “Your question is religiously mysterious, tria juncta in uno,” replied Vincent; “but I will answer it with the simplicity of a Quaker. The other evening I was coming home from one of Sir Lionel’s preserves, and had sent the keeper on before in order more undisturbedly to--” “Con witticisms for dinner,” said Wormwood. “To make out the meaning of Mr. Wormwood’s last work,” continued Lord Vincent. “My shortest way lay through that churchyard about a mile hence, which is such a lion in this ugly part of the country, because it has three thistles and a tree. Just as I got there, I saw a man suddenly rise from the earth, where he appeared to have been lying; he stood still for a moment, and then (evidently not perceiving me) raised his clasped hands to Heaven, and muttered some words I was not able distinctly to hear. As I approached nearer to him which I did with no very pleasant sensations, a large black dog, which, till then, had remained couchant, sprung towards me with a loud growl, “‘Sonat hic de nare canina Litera,’ as Persius has it. I was too terrified to move-- “‘Obstupui--steteruntque comae--’ and I should most infallibly have been converted into dog’s meat, if our mutual acquaintance had not started from his reverie, called his dog by the very appropriate name of Terror, and then slouching his hat over his face, passed rapidly by me, dog and all. I did not recover the fright for an hour and a quarter. I walked--ye gods, how I did walk--no wonder, by the by, that I mended my pace, for as Pliny says truly: ‘Timor est emendator asperrimus.’” Mr. Wormwood had been very impatient during this recital, preparing an attack upon Lord Vincent, when Mr. Davison entering suddenly, diverted the assault.