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  PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

            VOL. 107.

         August 11, 1894.




  LORD ORMONT'S MATE AND MATEY'S AMINTA.

      BY G***GE M*R*D*TH.

  VOLUME III.

And now the climax comes not with tongue-lolling sheep-fleece wolves,
ears on top remorselessly pricked for slaughter of the bleating imitated
lamb, here a fang pointing to nethermost pit not of stomach but of
Acheron, tail waving in derision of wool-bearers whom the double-rowed
desiring mouth soon shall grip, food for mamma-wolf and baby-wolf,
papa-wolf looking on, licking chaps expectant of what shall remain; and
up goes the clamour of flocks over the country-side, and up goes howling
of shepherds shamefully tricked by AEsop-fable artifice or doggish
dereliction of primary duty; for a watch has been set through which the
wolf-enemy broke paws on the prowl; and the King feels this, and the
Government, a slab-faced jubber-mubber of contending punies,
party-voters to the front, conscience lagging how far behind no man can
tell, and the country forgotten, a lout dragging his chaw-bacon hobnails
like a flask-fed snail housed safely, he thinks, in unbreakable shell
soon to be broken, and no man's fault, while the slow country sinks to
the enemy, ships bursting, guns jammed, and a dull shadow of defeat on a
war-office drifting to the tide-way of unimagined back-stops on a lumpy
cricket-field of national interests. But this was a climax revealed to
the world.