In an instant its neck was wrung, its body dashed on the ground;
and that fair young creature, every feature quivering with rage, was
stamping his foot on his victim again and again! It was horrible. I
caught him by the arm indignantly. He turned round on me like a wild
beast disturbed from its prey,--his teeth set, his hand lifted, his eyes
like balls of fire.

"Shame!" said I, calmly; "shame on you!"

He continued to gaze on me a moment or so, his eye glaring, his breath
panting; and then, as if mastering himself with an involuntary effort,
his arm dropped to his side, and he said quite humbly, "I beg your
pardon; indeed I do. I was beside myself for a moment; I cannot bear
pain;" and he looked in deep compassion for himself at his wounded hand.
"Venomous brute!" And he stamped again on the body of the squirrel,
already crushed out of shape.

I moved away in disgust, and walked on.

But presently I felt my arm softly drawn aside, and a voice, dulcet as
the coo of a dove, stole its way into my ears. There was no resisting
the charm with which this extraordinary mortal could fascinate even
the hard and the cold; nor them, perhaps, the least. For as you see in
extreme old age, when the heart seems to have shrunk into itself, and
to leave but meagre and nipped affections for the nearest relations if
grown up, the indurated egotism softens at once towards a playful child;
or as you see in middle life, some misanthrope, whose nature has been
soured by wrong and sorrow, shrink from his own species, yet make
friends with inferior races, and respond to the caress of a dog,--so,
for the worldling or the cynic, there was an attraction in the freshness
of this joyous favourite of Nature,--an attraction like that of a
beautiful child, spoilt and wayward, or of a graceful animal, half
docile, half fierce.

"But," said I, with a smile, as I felt all displeasure gone, "such
indulgence of passion for such a trifle is surely unworthy a student of
philosophy!"

"Trifle," he said dolorously. "But I tell you it is pain; pain is no
trifle. I suffer. Look!"

I looked at the hand, which I took in mine. The bite no doubt had been
sharp; but the hand that lay in my own was that which the Greek sculptor
gives to a gladiator; not large (the extremities are never large
in persons whose strength comes from the just proportion of all the
members, rather than the factitious and partial force which continued
muscular exertion will give to o