country, or an enemy more vigilantly guard a pass therein, than did I and they respectively. On each and all of these occasions have I debated with myself whether I should not fetch a secure though sinuous compass through the fields, even with the addition of a few miles and other discomforts to my walk; but as often--with honest, though, as I look upon my leg, with melancholy pride I write it--did my pluck preserve me from so disgraceful a detour. What! my indignant manhood would exclaim, shall I, one of the lords of the creation--shall I, who have dared and have accomplished so and so--recalling some of my most notable exploits by flood and field, in crossing the Channel and cantering in the Park--shall I, one of her majesty’s liege subjects, a grand jury cess-payer and a freeholder to boot, be driven from the highway which I pay to support, and obliged to skulk like a criminal from view, scramble over walls and splutter through swamps, daub my boots, rend mayhap my tights, and risk other contingencies, and all by reason of such vile scrubs? No, perish the thought!--though their name be Legion, and their nature impish, I will face them, ay, and write the fear of me upon their hides too, if they dare molest me--that I will. Thus spoke the man within me, as I fiercely griped my cane; and if, as I cooled, an occasional shrinking of the calves of my legs in fancied supposition of a tooth inserted therein, betokened aught like quailing, I recalled Marlborough’s saying on the eve of battle, “How this little body trembles at what this great soul is about to perform!” and felt that I too was exemplifying that loftiest courage in which the infirmity of the flesh succumbs to the vigour of the spirit. Decided by some such discipline to run the gauntlet, and in a state of temper alternating between war and peace, inclining, as I remarked, strange contradiction! to the former when the latter was in prospect, and to the latter when the former, I proceeded in guarded vigilance. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” no doubt, but in my case evil deferred doth oftentimes as much. The substantial presence of danger for me, before its fearful imminence--the real onset of a canine crew, before the terrible suspense of passing the open den in which haply they lay wait, the shrill gamut of attack splitting your ear worse in apprehension than in action. But attention! yonder is the first position. Egad! I’m in luck to-day; the coast seems clear, and--the pacific now prevails amain--poor devils, I won’t make any ruction. “Ever follow peace If you’d live at ease,”