der
a rock, and began growling at dear Lady Nelthorpe and me, in the most
savage manner imaginable. He would certainly have torn us to pieces if a
very tall--" "Not so very tall either," said Lady Nelthorpe.

"Dear, how you interrupt one," said Miss Trafford, pettishly; "well, a
very short man, then, wrapped up in a cloak--"

"In a great coat," drawled Lady Nelthorpe. Miss Trafford went on without
noticing the emendation,--"had not with incredible rapidity sprung down
the rock and--"

"Called him off," said Lady Nelthorpe.

"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