With the form of every quadruped into the shape of which he was turned, he seemed to acquire its nature and antipathies, and in none was it so striking as in the hare. When the collies began to snap at him, his terror is not to be imagined; he darted round and round the hall like lightning, breaking out and in to Michael's study, to the great disarrangement of his conjuring apparatus, books, and papers; while every time that a colley sprung with open mouth at him, he uttered a desperate scream. This was the only one of their frolics that appeared to amuse the great Master, his partiality for the sports of the chase being proverbial to this day. When he saw the old seneschal laying back his long ears, and exerting his powers of speed in such manifest terror, and the malignant collies whinking after him, and waylaying him in every strait, making him often spring aloft, he could not help laughing outright, and baiting the dogs on him. The tears stood in the old hare's eyes when he heard this, nevertheless his fright made him agile; he bolted from the halls and alleys of the castle into the extensive yard; and there was such a hunt! Michael and the friar both ran to their respective windows to see the sport, and our party at the outer gate shouted and hallooed with great energy. Many a time did the dogs get a snap at the steward, and make him scream out, while all the onlookers laughed aloud. At length, thinking he would actually be worried, he cleared the wall, and made a bold effort to gain the wood. But these were a trio of dogs from which there was no possibility of escape. Ran he fast or ran he slow, there were they after him, snatching at his hips and panting sides, and yelping so keenly all the while that the seneschal had no doubt of being torn in pieces should they fairly seize him. They turned him, and made him trace many an acute angle on the hill, while our party were running after him, throwing always sticks or stones at the steward, as he hasted by them, and baiting the dogs on him. Finding, as formerly, no other resource, he returned with main speed to the castle, and crept down at the Master's feet, who, with one touch of his divining rod, changed him into his own native forbidding form. He started up in great wrath; and, though panting so that he could scarcely speak, swore a horrible oath, that he would no longer be kept in bondage and maltreated in that manner; and that, since it was impossible for him to escape in any other way, he would cut his own throat, and run his chance of an after life.