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The gaunt wolf had once ravaged the glens, and the sly fox and fierce cat-a-mountain still harboured within them. Nor were those the only objects of dread. The superstitious declared the gorge was haunted by a frightful, hirsute demon, yclept Hobthurst.
President put round your Health as such, protesting, "That tho' indeed he talked of a Vizard, he did not believe all the while you had any more Occasion for it than the Cat-a-mountain;"
"The owl is abroad, the bat, the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain; The ant and the mole both sit in a hole, And frog peeps out o' the fountain; The dogs they bay and the timbrels play And the spindle now is turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled But all the sky is a-burning." But we were still more remote, for of beaters of timbrels and turners of spindles were there none!
"Ah! those two, I believe, were going to murder the old man in the hammock, if we had not come in the nick of time. What have you done with them?" "Why, the Spaniard ran when he saw me, and got into a cabin; but the woman, instead of running, came at me with a knife, and chased me round the table like a very cat-a-mountain.
"You may leave the women to themselves, my masters; you'll have to deal with the men ere long: so get your canoes up on the rock, and keep good watch." "Hillo!" shouted one in a few minutes, "here's fresh fish enough to feed us all round. I suppose that young cat-a-mountain left it behind her in her hurry. I wish she had left her golden chains and ouches into the bargain."
"Aha!" exclaimed Nicholas, placing his ear to the hole. "The old hag is unwilling to come forth, and spits and scratches like a cat-a-mountain, while Jem gripes her like a terrier. It is a hard tussle between them, but he is getting the better of it, and is pushing her forth. Now look out."
But I wasn't the first, for who should be waiting for me but my sister, Mary, and Bob Battle himself. Bob was looking out of the window at the graves, thoughtful like, and parson was getting out of his robes; but Mary didn't wait for them. She let on to me like a cat-a-mountain, and I never had such a dressing down from mortal man or woman in all my life as I had from her that Sunday morning.
I most begin to think that cat-a-mountain of a bwoy 's less in her thoughts than he was. She 'm larnin' wisdom, as well she may wi' sich a faither." "I doan't knaw what to think," answered Mr. Lyddon, somewhat gloomily. "I ban't so much in her confidence as of auld days. Damaris Blanchard's right, like enough. A maid 's tu deep even for the faither that got her, most times.
In its chases ranged herds of deer, protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the mountains; might spear the boar in the oaken glades, or the otter on the river's brink; might unearth the badger or the fox, or smite the fierce cat-a-mountain with a quarrel from his bow.
With that, he pulled out his pocket-knife, and feeling for a soft place, drove it at one blow up to the handle in the side of the mountain. A terrific shriek was the first result; and the second, that Alice and he sat looking at each other across the old man's hump, from which the cat-a-mountain had vanished.