re extremely afraid of him, and kept rushing
continually backward and springing aloft to obtain a view. I now pressed
forward and urged them on; old Argyll and Bles took up his spoor in
gallant style, and led on the other dogs. Then commenced a short but
lively and glorious chase, whose conclusion was the only small
satisfaction that I could obtain to answer for the horrors of the
preceding evening. The lion held up the river's bank for a short
distance, and took away through some wait-a-bit thorn cover, the best he
could find, but nevertheless open. Here, in two minutes, the dogs were
up with him, and he turned and stood at bay. As I approached, he stood,
his horrid head right to me, with open jaws, growling fiercely, his tail
waving from side to side.

On beholding him my blood boiled with rage. I wished that I could take
him alive and torture him, and, setting my teeth, I dashed my steed
forward within thirty yards of him and shouted, "_Your_ time is up, old
fellow." I halted my horse, and, placing my rifle to my shoulder, waited
for a broadside. This the next moment he exposed, when I sent a bullet
through his shoulder and dropped him on the spot. He rose, however,
again, when I finished him with a second in the breast. The Bakalahari
now came up in wonder and delight. I ordered John to cut off his head
and forepaws and bring them to the wagons, and, mounting my horse,
galloped home, having been absent about fifteen minutes. When the
Bakalahari women heard that the man-eater was dead, they all commenced
dancing about with joy, calling me _their father_.

[From Howitt's Country Year-Book.]

THE HAUNTED HOUSE IN CHARNWOOD FOREST.

One fine, blustering, autumn day, a quiet and venerable-looking old
gentleman might be seen, with stick in hand, taking his way through the
streets of Leicester. If any one had followed him, they would have
found him directing his steps toward that side of the town which leads
to Charnwood. The old gentleman, who was a Quaker, took his way
leisurely, but thoughtfully, stopping every now and then to see what the
farmers' men were about, who were plowing up the stubbles to prepare for
another year's crop. He paused, also, at this and that farm-house,
evidently having a pleasure in the sight of good fat cattle, and in the
flocks of poultry--fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys, busy about the
barn-door, where the sound of the flail, or the swipple, as they there
term it, was already hea