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Satisfied with the result, cunning Reynard at last selected a larger branch of spruce-fir than usual, and couching himself down on it, set it adrift as he had done the others.
The aptest resemblance of his motions and manners might perhaps be to those of a domestic cat, which, while couching in seeming slumber, or gliding through the apartment with slow, stealthy, and timid steps, is now engaged in watching the hole of some unfortunate mouse, now in rubbing herself with apparent confidence and fondness against those by whom she desires to be caressed, and, presently after, is flying upon her prey, or scratching, perhaps, the very object of her former cajolements.
The burning sun had driven every creature under shelter, and no one was visible; but well was it known that watch and ward was closely kept from beneath those dark tents, that to the eyes within had the air of couching beasts of prey.
On they came, officers in front for the charge, as usual with the Austrians; fire on both flanks, a furious mob at their heels, and the barricade before them. They rushed at Romara, and were hurled back, and stood in a riddled lump. Suddenly Romara knocked up the rifles of the couching Swiss; he yelled to the houses to stop firing. "Surrender your prisoners, you shall pass," he called.
The Baron Henry raged like a madman. Gnashing his teeth together, he rode back a little way; then turning and couching his lance, he suddenly clapped spurs to his horse, and the next instant came thundering down upon his solitary enemy. Baron Conrad whirled his sword in the air, as he saw the other coming like a thunderbolt upon him; he leaped aside, and the lance passed close to him.
It glowed upon his ample cuirass; it revealed his firm lips, slightly curled by an expression of scornful triumph; it displayed the grand, muscular formation of his arm, which rested clothed in tightly-fitting leather upon his knee; it partly brightened over his short, light hair, and glittered steadily in his fixed, thoughtful, manly eyes, which were just perceptible beneath the partial shadow of his contracted brow; while it left the lower part of his body and his right hand, which was supported on the head of a huge, shaggy dog couching at his side, shadowed almost completely by the thick skins heaped confusedly against the sides of the wooden chest.
There was no light in the vessel's bow no twinkle from the shore no ship in sight nothing that told of existence but his own Fire-fly, couching on the ocean like a sleeping bird. "There is a demon spirit within her," whispered Dalton to himself; "the sight of her sends me wild again. Devil that she is! so beautiful! so well proportioned! Talk of the beauty of woman!
Quince Forrest was spending his winnings as well as drinking freely, and at the end of a quadrille gave vent to his hilarity in an old-fashioned Comanche yell. The bouncer of the dance hall of course had his eye on our crowd, and at the end of a change, took Quince to task. He was a surly brute, and instead of couching his request in appropriate language, threatened to throw him out of the house.
"Sir Launcelot, seeing with indignation the unworthy treatment his squire had received, and scorning to stain his lance with the blood of plebeians, instead of couching it at the rest, seized it by the middle, and fetching one blow at the serjeant, broke in twain the halbert which he had raised as a quarter-staff for his defence.
But the years have come and the years have gone, and I am older than I was at twenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they walk secure, overseas, through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall heather above Etive, tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. Forster is dead. Ewin Mackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago come Martinmas night I saw his perjured soul on its way to hell.
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