Page:Pagan papers.djvu/121

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ORION
109

with yelpings and hallooings—well, I may be out of date, but we wouldn't have stood that sort of thing on Helicon.' So he hobbles down the road. Good-night, old fellow! Out of date? Well, it may be so. And alas! the blame is ours.

But for the Hunter—there he rises—couchant no more. Nay, flung full stretch on the blue, he blazes, he dominates, he appals! Will his turn, then, really come at last? After some Armageddon of cataclysmal ruin, all levelling, whelming the County Councillor with the Music-hall artiste, obliterating the very furrows of the Plough, shall the skin-clad nomad string his bow once more, and once more loose the whistling shaft? Wildly incredible it seems. And yet—look up! Look up and behold him confident, erect, majestic—there on the threshold of the sky!