"I have never before experienced such a trial of the nervous system; there was a moment, I acknowledge, when the fortiter in re faltered before so terrible an enemy; but the love of natural science bore me up, and brought me off in triumph!" "You speak a language so different from that we use in Tennessee," said Ellen, struggling to conceal her laughter, "that I hardly know whether I understand your meaning.

If I am right, you wish to say you were chicken-hearted." "An absurd simile drawn from an ignorance of the formation of the biped.
The heart of a chicken has a just proportion to its other organs, and the domestic fowl is, in a state of nature, a gallant bird.

Ellen," he added, with a countenance so solemn as to produce an impression on the attentive girl, "I was pursued, hunted, and in a danger that I scorn to dwell on--what's that ?" Ellen started; for the earnestness and simple sincerity of her companion's manner had produced a certain degree of credulity, even on her buoyant mind.

Looking in the direction indicated by the Doctor, she beheld, in fact, a beast coursing over the prairie, and making a straight and rapid approach to the very spot they occupied.

The day was not yet sufficiently advanced to enable her to distinguish its form and character, though enough was discernible to induce her to imagine it a fierce and savage animal.
"It comes! it comes!" exclaimed the Doctor, fumbling, by a sort of instinct, for his tablets, while he fairly tottered on his feet under the powerful efforts he made to maintain his ground.