neath the iron of my strength--for God that day was
with me--I had him helpless in two minutes, and his fiery eyes
lolled out.

[Footnote 2: A far more terrible clutch than this is handed down, to
weaker ages, of the great John Ridd.--ED. L.D.]

"I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I could for panting,
the work being very furious: "Carver Doone, thou art beaten; own it, and
thank God for it; and go thy way, and repent thyself."

It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his ravening frenzy--for
his beard was like a mad dog's jowl--even if he would have owned that
for the first time in his life he had found his master, it was all
too late.

The black bog had him by the feet; the sucking of the ground drew on
him, like the thirsty lips of death. In our fury we had heeded neither
wet nor dry, nor thought of earth beneath us. I myself might scarcely
leap, with the last spring of o'erlabored legs, from the engulfing grave
of slime. He fell back, with his swarthy breast (from which my grip had
rent all clothing), like a hummock of bog-oak, standing out the
quagmire; and then he tossed his arms to heaven, and they were black to
the elbow, and the glare of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and
pant; for my strength was no more than an infant's from the fury and the
horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while, joint by joint, he sank
from sight.

LANDING THE TROUT

From 'Alice Lorraine'

The trout knew nothing of all this. They had not tasted a worm for a
month, except when a sod of the bank fell in, through cracks of the sun,
and the way cold water has of licking upward. And even the flies had no
flavor at all; when they fell on the water, they fell flat, and on the
palate they tasted hot, even under the bushes.

Hilary followed a path through the meadows, with the calm bright sunset
casting its shadow over the shorn grass, or up in the hedge-road, or on
the brown banks where the drought had struck. On his back he carried a
fishing-basket, containing his bits of refreshment; and in his right
hand a short springy rod, the absent sailor's favorite. After long
council with Mabel, he had made up his mind to walk up-stream as far as
the spot where two brooks met, and formed body enough for a fly flipped
in very carefully to sail downward. Here he began, and the creak of his
reel and the swish of his rod were music to him, after the whirl of
London life.

The brook was as bright as the best