Commonplace Book

'...It was a sign, a chance. It was a little chink in the scheme of things into which he might thrust himself. If only he could save this one small creature from the cruelty of nature, stave off its danger, let it go. If only for once the dark powers could be forced to let a victim go. Man, who had conceived the forlorn hope of justice and love, man was on trial in this waste land knotted with growths, the site designate of a cathedral. Sale had no plan. He ran and doubled as instinctively as the dogs, was as primitive in his fierce desire as they. He tried to throw himself between the hunted and the hunters, but in the darkness and confusion he headed, not the dogs, but the rabbit. More frightened of this greater pursuer, it doubled away from him towards the dogs. They caught it in a little clearing almost at his feet. In an instant the bull-terrier had ripped it to death, and his shaggy mate had joined ecstatically in the carnage. Sale stood for a moment, the blood singing in his ears, a black horror rising through his veins. Then he fled in wild, zigzagging, uncalculated flight as if from all the legions of darkness...'

from Plaque With Laurel by M. Barnard Eldershaw (Part IV, Chapter VI)