Horses plunging--one almost into the river--shrieks of ladies--exclamations from pedestrians--the field is scattered--some attempt to ford the river--some jump right in--some on horseback cross it shouting--some plunge into the plantation on the left--some are running back upon us! A panic. Mad bull, perhaps--if so--with admirable presence of mind I jump into the water up to my waist, and am making for the opposite side, when a man, running and smoking a short pipe, answers my question as to the bull with-- "No! Wasps! Wasps' nest!!" In a second I see them. _At_ me. Pursuing me. I dive my head under water. Wet through! Scramble up bank. One wasp is after me. One pertinaciously. My foot catches in a root, I am down. Wasp down too, close at my ear. A minute more I am up. Wasp up too, by my right ear. _An Inspiration._--It flashes across me that wasps hate mud. Don't know where I heard it. Think it was in some child's educational book. No time for thinking. Jump--squish--into the mud! Over my knees--boots nearly off. The last thing I see of PENDELL is holding on his spectacles with his left hand, and fighting a wasp with his stick in his right. Squish--flop--flosh!... Up against a stump--down in a morass. Wasp at me. Close to my ear as if he wanted to tell me a secret. I won't hear it! Now I understand why the dog shook his head. Through a bramble bush (like the Man in the Nursery Rhyme, who scratched both his eyes out and in again by a similar operation), and come out torn and scratched, but dry as a pen after being dragged through a patent wiper of erect bristles. No wasp. Gone. I am free. But still I keep on. That's the only great danger in Otter-Hunting. At least, that I know of at present. I pick up the man with pipe. Kindest creature in the world. He has two pipes, and he fills and gives me one. He says, "Wasps won't attack a smoker." _Flash._--Smoke. PENDELL comes up. "Um!--aha!" he says; "narrow escape!" He has _not_ been stung. The Field is pulling itself together again. PENDELL chuckles. "Did you see Old RUDDOCK?" he asks. "There were two wasps at him." No! It appears that Old RUDDOCK has been quite close to me throughout the day. Yet there was no laughing crowd, and I haven't heard one of RUDDOCK'S jokes bruited about. Odd. Wonder how the wasps liked RUDDOCK. * * * * * [Illustration: COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON.] _Squire_ (_who interests himself with the Moral and Material Condition of his Peasantry_). "HULLO, WOODRUFF! WHAT AN EYE YOU'VE GOT! HOW DID YOU GET THAT?!" _Labourer._ "O, IT'S NAWTHIN' PARTIC'LAR, SIR. LAST NIGHT--AT THE WHITE 'ART, SIR. BUT--(_in extenuation_)--CHRISHMASH TIME, SIR--ON'Y ONCE A YEAR!" * * * * * MONODY ON M'GRATH. MASTER M'GRATH has passed away; He breathed his last on Christmas Day. He quitted this terrestrial sphere, In doghood's prime--his twice-third year.