looked down upon her with an air of the most
protecting gallantry.

For my part, being no sportsman, I kept with this last party, or
rather lagged behind, that I might take in the whole picture; and the
parson occasionally slackened his pace, and jogged on in company with
me.

The sport led us at some distance from the Hall, in a soft meadow,
reeking with the moist verdure of spring. A little river ran through
it, bordered by willows, which had put forth their tender early
foliage. The sportsmen were in quest of herons, which were said to
keep about this stream.

There was some disputing, already, among the leaders of the sport. The
Squire, Master Simon, and old Christy, came every now and then to a
pause, to consult together, like the field officers in an army; and I
saw, by certain motions of the head, that Christy was as positive as
any old wrong-headed German commander.

As we were prancing up this quiet meadow, every sound we made was
answered by a distinct echo, from the sunny wall of an old building,
that lay on the opposite margin of the stream; and I paused to listen
to this "spirit of a sound," which seems to love such quiet and
beautiful places. The parson informed me that this was the ruin of an
ancient grange, and was supposed, by the country people, to be haunted
by a dobbie, a kind of rural sprite, something like Robin-good-fellow.
They often fancied the echo to be the voice of the dobbie answering
them, and were rather shy of disturbing it after dark. He added, that
the Squire was very careful of this ruin, on account of the
superstition connected with it. As I considered this local habitation
of an "airy nothing," I called to mind the fine description of an echo
in Webster's Duchess of Malfry:

--"Yond side o' th' river lies a wall,
Piece of a cloister, which, in my opinion,
Gives the best echo that you ever heard:
So plain in the distinction of our words,
That many have supposed it a spirit
That answers."

The parson went on to comment on a pleasing and fanciful appellation
which the Jews of old gave to the echo, which they called Bath-kool,
that is to say, "the daughter of the voice;" they considered it an
oracle, supplying in the second temple the want of the urim and
thummim, with which the first was honoured.[5] The little man was just
entering very largely and learnedly upon the subject, when we were
startled by a prodigious bawling, shouting, and yelping. A flight of
crows,