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it is next door to nothing at all. The crack men of your hunt-the Lord Gardiners, long Coxes, Tom Prices, Captain Powells, and so on, who cut out the work, break the binders, sound the brooks, and pioneer by right of might, take such bargained-for trifles as their proper perquisites, leaving it to less distinguished performers who come after, to jump over or on them, as the case may be. This, especially in these racing, steeple-chasing, fly-away times, sets the fashion at once, and so young Lord Hironhed, or simple Mr. Softpate, having attempted the ticklish trick of "lifting" his horse, and succeeded thereby in flooring him neatly, regards his mud-cased side and crush hat with due complacency and christian-like resignation. Sure doesn't it show he has been fighting his way gallantly over the country? Isn't it gospel truth of the awful places he tilted at? And won't it raise him cent. per cent. in the eyes of his sisters, cousins, and ladies' maids? And echo answers, "Won't it just?" And so he turns again for home, with something of the satisfaction and something more of the appearance which established usage has given to Tony Lumpkin, after rattling his mamma over Crackskull Common, down Squash Lane, and then at length safely landing her in the horse-pond at the back of the house.

According to our own experience and observation-which, as we interpret it, mean much the same thing-second whips are, after all, the greatest adepts in "going down," as, on the other hand, huntsmen about the least frequent sufferers, considering their almost daily duties a-field, from accidents of the character illustrated by our artist. This, too, may be tolerably well accounted for: running or not running, whips are always at work-boring their way through covers to corners, chevying riot-making puppies, hurrying to halloos, speculating for views, and so on, afford them an ample allowance of awkward, journeyman, hard labour. Then, moreover, the mounts they are so proverbially honoured with tend much to increase their liabili ties-untaught or unteachable devils, to be put at untried or impracticable places, are certainly fine ingredients for a full, fair fall, and these the junior counsel has too often to contend with. The halfbroken, queer-tempered beggars are also forced away from their company without the cry of a hound, the clash of a find, or, in fact, any inducement beyond resolute handling and sharp heel-ing to get them over or through. How often, then, and how naturally does it happen that, after drawing a strong deep cover, without a note or a flourish to enliven the formal procession we are ranged in! how common is it to find Will, Tom, or Harry waiting for us at the other end, with the young-un's head covered with mud, and Bill's corduroys well sprinkled with blood, looking for all the world as if he had just had twenty minutes' best pace, with ten falls, in the scurry! Never mind, if the nag don't care about it he don't; it's all the fortune of war, and, please the pigs, he'll be a huntsman some day, and then

"Let him make hunters who has ne'er a groat."

In the mean-while, he goes on with the queer ones, resigning them, of course, directly they become good ones; doing all the dirty work of the day, and breaking gates, banks, quicks, horses by degrees, and now and then ribs, when, as is recorded of one of his almost invul

nerable fellows under similar circumstances, he may be induced to admit that " he be hurt now."

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a fall during the run is a harmless, good-joke sort of mishap. Diana appears to have an especial care of her votaries when engaged in her legitimate worship. If down you must go, it is only to get up again-your horse put his leg just over instead of on your shoulder, and damaged your hat instead of your head. Many a man, we know, would take a dozen rolls of this sort with hounds going, that would turn sick at the slightest mistake under less exciting circumstances. As John Bull, Esquire, of Freshfield Hall, in this county, was on his way to the Quarter Sessions on Thursday last, his horse put his foot on a stone, and fell heavily; John Bull, Esquire, being severely injured of course, and crying out for a doctor and a post-chaise before he well knew where he had it. Sent home and put to bed, with a bulletin published every day for a fortnight, for a crack over the eye, a kick on the shin, or a rent in the extra-superfine green cut-away. And yet, remove this said Mr. Bull from his hack to his hunter, with the red rag in place of the quieter hue of "his worship" to the fore, and a fox to be killed instead of a poacher to be punished, and then see what a change will come over the spirit of the man. He shall be doubly ducked in the gurgite vasto of a rotten-banked brook, with no more fear of influenzic influence than of yellow fever being the consequence. He shall go through a new gate or be knocked overa hog-backed stile with as much impunity as if such had already been agreed to as part of the performance; or, like the gentleman before us, shall take his share of a long, awkward, up-and-down scramble, with no other ill effects than losing a good place in what promises to be a good thing, and even then setting out again with the strong hope that the fortune of war, which has done him this wrong, may put him right with them yet.

Admitting there may be some possibility of danger, our hero has none of it. Bad falls, it has been laid down, generally come from blown horses or stiff timber, the two combined being an especial provocative. Now in this case the black looks as fresh as a daisy, and the bullfincher that has floored him appears to be as nice a place for a keen hand to "screw" through as heart could wish. Despite the "festina lentè" style of charging fences, we must say we think, had our friend-if he will allow us to call him so-sent his horse a little faster at it, the squire-trap would never have caught him. Jim Crow, who, by the cut of his jib, is not quite thorough-bred --we will pound it, was no doubt waiting for that little bit of a rousing you ought to have afforded him. Prophecy after an event, however, is unbecoming in any man but a turf oracle; yet still, next time take our advice, or Dick Knight's, if you think that a better authority, and "put him sharp at it, my lord!"

15

A PEEP AT THE PROVINCES.

BY ACTEON.

(Continued.)

On Saturday, November 6, I met Lord Redesdale's hounds (the Heythrop) at Kiddington gate. This never was a favourite fixture of mine; although I have seen some good sport, especially in the spring of the year, from the woodlands in the neighbourhood. There was but a small field who honoured the pack with their presence: the noble master himself being, unfortunately, absent, from the effects of a severe kick, received on the previous hunting-day, from the horse (a thoroughbred stallion, once a favourite in the Derby) ridden by Jack Goddard, the first whipper-in. Amongst the field, who might be enumerated as regular attendants on these hounds, but few indeed could be recognized as belonging to what might be termed the "duke's men" of fifteen years ago: Captain Anstice, although he had arrived at his old quarters at Chipping Norton, was not out; and out of a field of about fifty horsemen, I could only recognise Mr. Webb, who once lived at Kiddington, before Mr. Ricardo purchased the property, Mr. Whippy, and one or two more, who, as I observed before, were the old and acknowledged attendants upon the pack of the late Duke of Beaufort.

At eleven o'clock Jem Hills threw what is termed his small pack, numbering twenty-two couples, into Glymton Gorse-a cover about a mile and a half from Kiddington-gate. Nearly the whole of the two patches of gorse were drawn before a hound spoke to the coldest scent that could be imagined; and a halloo from a farmer brought the pack to the line of the fox, which had broken at the upper end of the cover, and to which the notes of the finding hounds would hardly have been sufficiently decided to cause the body of hounds to fly, and bring their fox away in a style that they would have done had the scent served them better than it did upon the present occasion. It was evident upon the hounds first entering the cover that a fox had been “ walking about" late in the morning, but it was a very stale scent indeed; and the numerous little rides that are now cut all about Glymton Gorse, for the purpose of rabbit-shooting, made it appear very uncertain whether we should find a fox at all in the cover, the stale scent being nothing more than where the animal had been on his feed amongst the rabbits

never

during the preceding night. A more miserable scent in November was experienced with hounds; in fact, they could hardly walk after him down wind, but managed, when the fox turned with his head a little to the wind, to keep chopping along, and, by dint of a great many halloos and lucky wide-casts, to work his line at a very slow hunting pace for nearly an hour, when they lost him, from mere want of scent, just where

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