Sporting Society (continued 3)

"Does Blankney know how bad his horse is?"

"No, bless yer! That ain't Phil Kelly's game." (Kelly was, I knew, the man who had charge of my opponent's horse.)

"Well, then, just explain, will you; for I can't see."

From the recesses of his garment the elder man pulled out a short stick about fifteen inches in length, at the end of which was a loop of string; and from another pocket he produced a small paper parcel.

"D'yer know what that is? That's a 'twitch.' D'yer know what that is? That's medicine. I love this 'ere young feller's mare so much I'm a-goin' to give it some nicey med'cine myself; and this is the right stuff. I've been up to the 'ouse to-day, and can find my way into the stable to-night when it's all quiet. Just slip this loop over 'er lip, and she'll open 'er mouth. Down goes the pill, and as it goes down the money goes into my pocket. Them officer fellers and their friends have been backing Blankney's 'orse; but Phil Kelly will take care that they hear at the last moment that he's no good. Then they'll rush to lay odds on the mare—and the mare won't win."

They laughed, and nudged each other in the side, and I felt a mighty temptation to rush into the room and nudge their heads with my fist. Little Lady's delicate lips, which Nelly had so often petted, to be desecrated by the touch of such villains as these!

While struggling to restrain myself a hand was laid on my shoulders, and, turning round, I saw Smithers. We proceeded to the stable; and I hastily recounted to him what had happened, and what I had heard, as he examined the mare by the aid of a bull's-eye lantern. He passed his hand very carefully over her, whilst I looked on with anxious eyes.

"She's knocked a bit of skin off here, you see." He pointed to a place a little below her knee, and drawing a small box from his pocket, anointed the leg. "But she's all right. All right, ain't you, old lady?" he said, patting her; and his cheerful tone convinced me that he was satisfied. "We'll lead her home. I'll go with you, sir; and it's easy to take means to prevent any games to-night."

When we reached home the doctor was there, and pronounced that, with the exception of a sprained ankle, Nelly had sustained no injury.

Rejoicing exceedingly, we proceeded to the stable; Heathfield, who heard my story, and who was delighted at the prospect of some fun, asking permission to accompany us.

"Collars" had doubtless surveyed the premises carefully, for he arrived about eleven o'clock, and clambered quietly and skilfully into the hayloft above the stable, after convincing himself that all was quiet inside. He opened the trap-door, and down came a foot and leg, feeling about to find a resting-place on the partition which divided Little Lady's loose box from the other stalls. Bertie and I took hold of the leg, and assisted him down, to his intense astonishment; while Heathfield and a groom gave chase to, and ultimately captured his friend, the watcher on the threshold.

"If I'm well enough to do anything I'm well enough to lie on the sofa; and there's really no difference between a sofa and an easy-chair—if my foot is resting—and I'm sure the carriage is easier than any chair; and it can't matter about my foot being an inch or two higher or lower—and as for shaking, that's all nonsense. It's very unkind indeed of you not to want to take me; and if you won't, directly you've gone I'll get up, and walk about, and stamp!"

Thus Nelly, in answer to advice that she should remain at home. How it ended may easily be guessed; and though we tried to be dignified, as we drove along, to punish her for her wilfulness, her pathetic little expressions of sorrow that she should "fall down, and hurt herself, and be such a trouble to everybody," and child-like assurances that she would "not do it again," soon made us smile, and forget our half-pretended displeasure. So with the aunt to take care of her, in case Bertie and I were insufficient, we reached the course.

The first three races were run and then the card said:—

3·15 Match, £120 a side, over the Steeple-chase Course, about three miles and a half.

1. Mr Blankney, 14th Dragoons, ch. h. Jibboom, 5 years, 11 st. 7 lb., rose, black and gold cap.

2. Mr Peyton, b. m. Little Lady, 6 years, 11 st., sky-blue, white cap.

Blankney was sitting on the regimental drag, arrayed in immaculate boots and breeches, and, after the necessary weighing ceremony had been gone through he mounted the great Jibboom, which Phil Kelly had been leading about: the latter gentleman had a rather anxious look on his face; but Blankney evidently thought he was on a good one, and nodded confidently to his friends on the drag as he lurched down the course.

Little Lady was brought up to me, Smithers being in close attendance.

"I shall be so glad, if you win," Nellie found opportunity to whisper.

"What will you give me?" I greedily inquire.

"Anything you ask me," is the reply; and my heart beats high as, having thrown off my light wrapper and mounted, Little Lady bounds down the course, and glides easily over the hurdle in front of the stand.

Bertie and Smithers were waiting at the starting-post; and, having shaken hands with Blankney, to whom Bertie introduced me, I went apart to exchange the last few sentences with my friends.

Bertie is a trifle pale, but confident; and Smithers seems to have a large supply of the latter quality. In however high esteem we hold our own opinions, we are glad of professional advice when it comes to the push; and I seek instructions.

"No, sir, don't you wait on him. Go away as hard as you can directly the flag drops. I don't like the look of that chestnut's legs—or, rather, I do like the look of them for our sakes. Go away as hard as ever you can; but take it easy at the fences; and, excuse me, sir, but just let the mare have her head when she jumps, and she'll be all right. People talk about 'lifting horses at their fences:' I only knew one man who could do it, and he made mistakes."

I nod; smiling as cheerfully as anxiety will permit me. The flag falls, and Little Lady skims over the ground, the heavy chestnut thundering away behind.

Over the first fence—a hedge—and then across a ploughed field; rather hard going, but not nearly so bad as I expected it would have been: the mare moving beautifully. Just as I reach the second fence a boy rushes across the course, baulking us; and before I can set her going again Jibboom has come up level, and is over into the grass beyond a second before us; but I shoot past and again take up the running. Before us are some posts and rails—rather nasty ones; the mare tops them, and the chestnut hits them hard with all four legs. Over more grass; and in front, flanked on either side by a crowd of white faces, is the water-jump. I catch hold of her head and steady her; and then, she rises, flies through the air, and lands lightly on the other side. A few seconds after I hear a heavy splash; but when, after jumping the hurdle into the course, I glance over my shoulder, the chestnut is still pounding away behind. As I skim along past the stand the first time round and the line of carriages opposite, I catch sight of a waving white handkerchief: it is Nellie; and my confused glimpse imperfectly reveals Bertie and Smithers standing on the box of the carriage.

I had seen visions of a finish, in which a certain person clad in a light-blue jacket had shot ahead just in the nick of time, and landed the race by consummate jockeyship after a neck-and-neck struggle for the last quarter of a mile. This did not happen, however, for, as I afterwards learned, the chestnut refused a fence before he had gone very far, and, having at last been got over, came to grief at the posts and rails the second time round. Little Lady cantered in alone; Blankney strolling up some time afterwards.

There is no need to make record of Bertie's delight at the success. We dined next day at the mess of the 14th, Blankney and his brethren were excessively friendly, and seemed pleased and satisfied; as most assuredly were we. Blankney opines that he went rather too fast at the timber; but a conviction seemed to be gaining ground towards the close of the evening that he had not gone fast enough at any period of the race.

And for Nellie? She kept her promise, and granted my request; and very soon after the ankle was well we required the services of other horses—grey ones!

HUNTING IN THE MIDLANDS

"Jem Pike has just come round, gentlemen, to say that they will be able to hunt to-day, after all: and as it's about starting time, and you've some distance to go, I will, if you wish, gentlemen, order your horses round."

The announcement, as it came to us over our breakfast at a hostelry which I will call the Lion, in a market town which I will call Chippington—a highly convenient hunting rendezvous in the Midlands—was not a little welcome. Jem Pike was the huntsman of the pack, and Jem Pike's message was an intimation that the frost of last night had not destroyed our sport for the day. The morning broke in what Jem would call a "plaguey ugly fashion:" from an artistic point of view it had been divine: for hunting purposes it had been execrable. A thin coating of ice on one's bath indoors, a good stiff hoar frost out, crystallized trees, and resonant roads—all this was seasonable, very, and "pretty to look at, too." But it was "bad for riding:" and we had not come to the Lion at Chippington in order to contemplate the beauties of nature, but to brace our nerves with the healthy excitement of the chase. Full of misgivings we descended to breakfast, in hunting toggery notwithstanding. As the sun shone out with increased brilliance we began to grow more cheerful. The frost, we said, was nothing, and all trace of it would be gone before noon. The waiter shook his head dubiously, suggested that there was a good billiard-table, and enquired as to the hour at which we would like to dine. But the waiter, as the event proved, was wrong, and we were still in the middle of breakfast when the message of the huntsman of the Chippington pack arrived—exactly what we had each of us said. Of course the frost was nothing: we had known as much; and now the great thing was to get breakfast over, and "then to horse away."

After all there is nothing for comfort like the old-fashioned hunting hotels, and unfortunately they are decreasing in number every year. Still the Lion at Chippington remains; and I am happy to say that I know of a few more like the Lion. They are recognisable at a glance. You may tell them by the lack of nineteenth century filagree decoration which characterises their exterior, by the cut of the waiters, by the knowing look of the boots. Snug are their coffee-rooms, luxurious their beds, genial their whole atmosphere. It is just possible that if you were to take your wife to such an establishment as the Lion, she would complain that an aroma of tobacco smoke pervaded the atmosphere. But the hunting hotel is conspicuously a bachelor's house. Its proprietor, or proprietress, does not lay himself or herself out for ladies and ladies' maids. It is their object to make single gentlemen, and gentlemen who enjoy the temporary felicity of singleness, at home. If it is your first visit, you are met in a manner which clearly intimates that you were expected. If you are an old habitué you find that all your wants are anticipated, and all your peculiar fancies known. The waiter understands exactly—marvellous is the memory of this race of men—what you like for breakfast: whether you prefer a "wet fish" or a "dry:" and recollects to a nicety your particular idea of a dinner. Under any circumstances a week's hunting is a good and healthy recreation: but it is difficult to enjoy a week's hunting more perfectly than in one of these hostelries, which have not, I rejoice to say, yet been swept away by the advancing tide of modern improvement.

Of whom did our company consist? We were not a party of Meltonian squires, such as it would have delighted the famous Nimrod to describe. We were neither Osbaldestones nor Sir Harry Goodrickes: neither Myddelton Biddulphs nor Holyoakes. A Warwickshire or an Oxfordshire hunting field differs very materially, so far as regards its personnel, from a Leicester or a Northamptonshire gathering. The latter still preserves the memories and the traditions of a past régime, when hunting was confined to country gentlemen, farmers, and a few rich strangers: the former is typical of the new order of things under which hunting has ceased to be a class amusement, and has become a generally popular sport. Now it is not too much to claim for hunting at the present day this character. The composition of the little band which on the morning now in question left the Lion Hotel at Chippington, bound for covert, was no unimportant testimony to this fact. We were half a dozen in number, and comprised among ourselves a barrister, a journalist, a doctor, and a couple of Civil servants, who had allowed themselves a week's holiday, and who, being fond of riding, had determined to take it in this way. In an average hunting field of the present day you will discover men of all kinds of professions and occupations—attorneys, auctioneers, butchers, bakers, innkeepers, artists, sailors, authors. There is no town in England which has not more than one pack of hounds in its immediate vicinity; and you will find that the riders who make up the regular field are inhabitants of the town—men who are at work four or five days in the week at their desk or counter, and who hunt the remaining one or two. There is no greater instrument of social harmony than that of the modern hunting field: and, it may be added, there is no institution which affords a healthier opportunity for the ebullition of what may be called the democratic instincts of human nature. The hunting field is the paradise of equality: and the only title to recognition is achievement. "Rank," says a modern authority on the sport, "has no privilege; and wealth can afford no protection." Out of the hunting field there may be a wide gulf which separates peasant from peer, tenant from landlord. But there is no earthly power which can compel the tenant to give way to the landlord, or the peasant to the peer, when the scent is good and hounds are in full cry.

As we get to the bottom of the long and irregularly-paved street which constitutes the main thoroughfare—indeed, I might add, the entire town of Chippington—we fall in with other equestrians bound for Branksome Bushes—the meet fixed for that day—distant not more than two miles from Chippington itself. There was the chief medical man of the place, mounted on a very clever horse, the head of the Chippington bank, and some half-dozen strangers. As we drew near to "the Bushes" we saw that there had already congregated a very considerable crowd. There were young ladies, some who had come just to see them throw off, and others with an expression in their faces, and a cut about their habits, which looked like business, and which plainly indicated that they intended, if possible, to be in at the death. There were two or three clergymen who had come from adjoining parishes, and one or two country squires. There were some three or four Oxford undergraduates—Chippington is within a very convenient distance of the city of academic towers—who were "staying up" at their respective colleges for the purpose of reading during a portion of the vacation, and who found it necessary to vary the monotony of intense intellectual application by an occasional gallop with the Chippington or Bicester pack. Then, of course, there was the usual contingent of country doctors: usual, I say, for the medical profession gravitates naturally towards equestrianism. If a country doctor rides at all, you may be sure he rides well, and is well mounted, moreover. There was also a very boisterous and hard-riding maltster, who had acquired a considerable reputation in the district: a fair sprinkling of snobs; one or two grooms and stable cads. There was also an illustrious novelist of the day, the guest of Sir Cloudesley Spanker, Bart., and Sir Cloudesley Spanker, Bart., himself.

We had drawn Branksome Bushes and the result was a blank. Local sportsmen commence to be prolific of suggestions. There was Henham Gorse, for instance, and two gentlemen asseverated most positively, upon intelligence which was indisputably true, that there was a fox in that quarter. Another noble sportsman, who prided himself especially on his local knowledge, pressed upon Jem Pike the necessity of turning his attention next to the Enderby Woods, to all of which admonitions, however, Mr Pike resolutely turned a deaf ear. These are among the difficulties which the huntsman of a subscription pack has to encounter or withstand. Every Nimrod who pays his sovereign or so a year to the support of the hounds considers he has a right to a voice in their management. Marvellous is the sensitiveness of the amateur sportsman. It is a well-established fact, that you cannot more grievously wound or insult the feelings of the gentleman who prides himself upon his acquaintance with horses than by impugning the accuracy of his judgment in any point of equine detail. Hint to your friend, who is possessed with the idea that he is an authority upon the manners and customs of foxes in general, and upon those of any one neighbourhood in particular, that there exists a chance of his fallibility, and he will resent the insinuation as a mortal slight. Jem Pike had his duty to do to the pack and to his employers, and he steadfastly refused to be guided or misguided by amateur advice. So, at Jem's sweet will, we jogged on from Branksome Bushes to Jarvis Spinney, and at Jarvis Spinney the object of our quest was obtained.

'Tis a pretty sight, the find and the throw off. You see a patch of gorse literally alive with the hounds, their sterns flourishing above its surface. Something has excited them, and there "the beauties" go, leaping over each other's backs. Then issues a shrill kind of whimper: in a moment one hound challenges, and next another. Then from the huntsman comes a mighty cheer that is heard to the echo. "He's gone," say half a score of voices. Hats are pressed on, cigars thrown away, reins gathered well up, and lo and behold they are off. A very fair field we were on the particular morning to which I here allude. The rector, I noticed, who had merely come to the meet, was well up with the first of us. Notwithstanding remonstrances addressed by timid papas and well-drilled grooms in attendance, Alice and Clara Vernon put their horses at the first fence, and that surmounted had fairly crossed the Rubicon. Nay, the contagion of the enthusiasm spread, as is always the case on such occasions, for their revered parents themselves were unable to resist the attraction. Sir Cloudesley Spanker asserted his position in the first rank, as did also the distinguished novelist, his guest.

It has been remarked that all runs with foxhounds are alike on paper and different in reality. We were fortunate enough to have one that was certainly above the average with the Chippington hounds. Our fox chose an excellent line of country, and all our party from the Lion enjoyed the distinction of being in at the death. Mishaps there were, for all the bad jumpers came signally to grief. Old Sir Cloudesley related with much grim humour the melancholy aspect that two dismounted strangers presented who had taken up their lodging in a ditch. The two Miss Vernons acquitted themselves admirably; so did the rector, and I am disposed to think that the company both of the ladies and the farmers vastly improved our hunting field. It is quite certain that clergymen, more than any other race of men, require active change, and they need what they can get nowhere better than in a hunting field. Nor in the modern hunting field is there anything which either ladies or clergymen need fear to face. The strong words and the strange oaths, the rough language—in fine, what has been called "the roaring lion element," these are accessories of the chase which have long since become things of the past. And the consummation is a natural consequence of the catholicity which hunting has acquired. There are no abuses like class abuses. Once admit the free light of publicity, and they vanish.

There are hunting farmers and hunting parsons, clergymen who make the chase the business of their lives, and those who get a day with the hounds as an agreeable relief to their professional toils. There is not much to be said in favour of the former order, which has, by the way, nearly become extinct. It survives in Wales and in North Devon yet, and curious are the authentic stories which might be narrated about these enthusiastic heroes of top-boots and spur. There is a little village in North Devon where, till within a very few years, the meet of the staghounds used to be given out from the reading desk every Sunday after the first lesson. Years ago, when one who is now a veteran amongst the fox-hunting clerics of that neighbourhood first entered upon his new duties, he was seized with a desire to reform the ways of the natives and the practices of the priests. Installed in his new living, he determined to forswear hounds and hunting entirely. He even carried his orthodoxy to such a point as to institute daily services, which at first, however, were very well attended. Gradually his congregation fell off, much to the grief of the enthusiastic pastor. One day, observing his churchwardens lingering in the aisle after the service had been concluded, he went up and asked them whether they could at all inform him of the origin of the declension. "Well, sir," said one of the worthies thus addressed, "we were a-going to speak to you about the very same thing. You see, sir, the parson of this parish do always keep hounds. Mr Froude, he kept foxhounds, Mr Bellew he kept harriers, and least ways we always expect the parson of this parish to keep a small cry of summut." Whereupon the rector expressed his entire willingness to contribute a sum to the support of "a small cry" of harriers, provided his congregation found the remainder. The experiment was tried and was completely successful, nor after that day had the new rector occasion to complain of a deficiency in his congregation.

Tories of the old school, for instance Sir Cloudesley Spanker, who has acquitted himself so gallantly to-day, would no doubt affirm that fox-hunting has been fatally injured as a sport by railways. The truth of the proposition is extremely questionable, and it may be dismissed in almost the same breath as the sinister predictions which are never verified of certain naval and military officers on the subject of the inevitable destiny of their respective services. Railways have no doubt disturbed the domestic tranquillity of the fox family, and have compelled its various members to forsake in some instances the ancient Lares and Penates. But the havoc which the science of man has wrought, the skill of man has obviated. Foxes are quite as dear to humanity as they can be to themselves; and in proportion as the natural dwellings of foxes have been destroyed artificial homes have been provided for them. Moreover, railways have had the effect of bringing men together, and of establishing all over the country new fox-hunting centres. Hunting wants money, and railways have brought men with money to the spots at which they were needed. They have, so to speak, placed the hunting field at the very doors of the dwellers in town. In London a man may breakfast at home, have four or five hours' hunting fifty miles away from the metropolitan chimney-pots, and find himself seated at his domestic mahogany for a seven o'clock dinner. Nor is it necessary for the inhabitant of London to go such a distance to secure an excellent day's hunting. To say nothing of her Majesty's staghounds, there are first-rate packs in Surrey, Essex, and Kent, all within a railway journey of an hour. Here again the inveterate laudator temporis acti will declare he discerns greater ground for dissatisfaction than congratulation. He will tell you that in consequence of those confounded steam-engines the field gets flooded by cockneys who can't ride, who mob the covert, and effectually prevent the fox from breaking. Of course it is indisputable that railways have familiarised men who never hunted previously with horses and with hounds, and that persons now venture upon the chase whose forefathers may have scarcely known how to distinguish between a dog and a horse. Very likely, moreover, it would be much better for fox-hunting if a fair proportion of these new-comers had never presented themselves in this their new capacity. At the same time with the quantity of the horsemen there has been some improvement also in the quality of the horsemanship. Leech's typical cockney Nimrod may not have yet become extinct, but he is a much rarer specimen of sporting humanity than was formerly the case.

It is a great thing for all Englishmen that hunting should have received this new development among us, and for the simple reason that salutary as is the discipline of all field sports, that of hunting is so in the most eminent degree. "Ride straight to hounds and talk as little as possible," was the advice given by a veteran to a youngster who was discussing the secret mode in which popularity was to be secured; and the sententious maxim contains a great many grains of truth. Englishmen admire performance, and without it they despise words. Performance is the only thing which in the hunting field meets with recognition or sufferance, and the braggart is most inevitably brought to his proper level in the course of a burst of forty minutes across a good country. Again, the hunting field is the most admirably contrived species of discipline for the temper. Displays of irritation or annoyance are promptly and effectively rebuked; and the man who cannot bear with fitting humility the reprimand, when it is merited, of the master or huntsman, will not have long to wait for the demonstrative disapproval of his compeers.

Hunting has been classed amongst those sports—detestata matribus—by reason of the intrinsic risk which it involves. Is it in any degree more dangerous than cricket or football, shooting or Alpine climbing? In Great Britain and Ireland there are at present exactly two hundred and twenty packs of hounds. Of these some hunt as often as five days a week, others not more frequently than two. The average may probably be fixed at the figure three. Roughly the hunting season lasts twenty-five weeks, while it may be computed that at least ninety horsemen go out with each pack. We thus have one million four hundred and fifty-eight thousand as the total of the occasions on which horse and rider feel the perils of the chase. "If," said Anthony Trollope, in the course of some admirable remarks on the subject, "we say that a bone is broken annually in each hunt, and a man killed once in two years in all the hunts together, we think that we exceed the average of casualties. At present there is a spirit abroad which is desirous of maintaining the manly excitement of enterprise in which some peril is to be encountered, but which demands at the same time that it should be done without any risk of injurious circumstances. Let us have the excitement and pleasure of danger, but for God's sake no danger itself. This at any rate is unreasonable."

These observations have somewhat diverted me from the thread of the original narrative. Should, however, the reader desire more precise information as to the particular line of country taken up by the fox on that eventful day with the Chippington hounds, will he not find it written for him in his favourite sporting paper?

So we met, so we hunted, and so we rode home and dined; and if any person who is not entirely a stranger to horses wishes to enjoy a few days' active recreation and healthy holidays, he cannot, I would submit, for the reasons which I have above attempted to enumerate, do better than go down to the Lion at Chippington, and get a few days with the Chippington hounds.

A MILITARY STEEPLE-CHASE

We were quartered in a very sporting part of the country, where the hunting season was always wound up by a couple of days' steeple-chasing. The regiment stationed here had usually given a cup for a military steeple-chase, and when we determined to give one for an open military handicap chase, the excitement was very great as to our chances of winning the cup we had given. As there were some very good horses and riders in the regiment, it appeared a fair one, eight nominations having been taken by us. There were also about the same number taken by regiments in the district. Our Major, who was a first-rate horseman, entered his well-known horse Jerry; I and others nominated one each, but one sub., a very celebrated character amongst us, took two. This man's father had made a very large fortune by nursery gardens, and put his son into the army, where, of course, he was instantly dubbed "The Gardener." He was by no means a bad sort of fellow, but he never could ride. The riding-master almost cried as he said he never could make "The Gardener" even look like riding; not that he was destitute of pluck, but he was utterly unable to stick on the horse. He had a large stud of hunters, but when out he almost invariably tumbled off at each fence.

Amongst those who nominated horses was the celebrated Captain Lane, of the Hussars, who was said to be so good a jockey that the professionals grumbled greatly at having to give him amateurs' allowance. No one was better at imperceptibly boring a competitor out of the course; and at causing false starts and balking at fences he was without a rival. The way he would seem to be hard on his horse with his whip, when only striking his own leg, was quite a master-piece. Report declared that he trained all his own horses to these dodges, and I believe it was quite true, as his were quite quiet and cool under the performances when the rest were almost fretted out of their lives.

When the handicap came out I found, to my great disgust, that such a crusher had been put on my horse that I at once put the pen through his name—not caring to run him on the off-chance of his standing up and the rest coming to grief, or with the probability, anyhow, of a punishing finish. However, the next night after mess, the Major called me up to him in the ante-room, and said: "I hear you have scratched your horse, and quite right, too. I have accepted, and if you like to have the mount, you are quite welcome." Of course, I was greatly delighted, but told him that I had never ridden in steeple-chase before. "But I have," growled the Major, "and am not going to waste over this tin-pot," as he irreverently called the cup, "so I can show you the ropes. Come to my quarters after breakfast to-morrow, and we will try the horse."

The next day I went there, and found the Major mounted, awaiting me, and Jerry—a very fine brown horse, with black points. I soon discovered that he had one decided peculiarity—viz., at his first fence, and sometimes the second, instead of going up and taking it straight, he would whip round suddenly and refuse. On thinking what could be the cause of this trick, I came to the conclusion that his mouth must have been severely punished by the curb when he was first taught jumping; and on telling the Major my idea, he allowed me to ride him as I pleased, so instead of an ordinary double bridle, I put one with a couple of snaffles in his mouth, and very soon found that this had the desired effect. Indeed, after a few days, he took his first fence all right, unless flurried, and before the day seemed quite trustworthy.

When we got back after our first day's ride, the Major told me, rather to my amusement, that I must go into training as well as the horse,—adding, what was quite true, that he had seen more amateur races lost through the rider being beat before the horse than by any other means; so when I had given Jerry his gallops in the morning, I had to start a mile run in the afternoon in flannels or sweaters.

The course was entirely a natural one, about three miles and a half round, and only two ugly places in it, chiefly grass, with one piece of light plough and some seeds. The first two fences were wattles on a bank, with a small ditch, then an ordinary quickset hedge, followed by an old and stiff bullfinch. After this a post and rails, a bank with a double ditch, and merely ordinary fences till we came to a descent of about a quarter of a mile, with a stream about twelve feet wide, and a bank on the taking-off side. Next came some grass meadows, with a very nasty trappy ditch, not more than four feet wide, but with not the slightest bank or anything of the kind on either side,—just the thing for a careless or tired horse to gallop into. The last fence, which was the worst of all, was, I fancy, the boundary of some estate or parish, and consisted of a high bank, with a good ditch on each side—on the top a young, quick-set hedge, and, to prevent horses or cattle injuring it, two wattle fences, one on each side, slanting outwards. After this, there was a slight ascent of about 300 yards; then there was dead level of about a quarter of a mile up to the winning-post.

On the evening before the chase, we had a grand guest night, to which, of course, all the officers of other regiments who had entered horses were invited. We youngsters were anxious to see Captain Lane, of whom we had heard so much.

On his arrival, after the usual salutations, he enquired of the Major whether he was going to ride, and, on receiving a negative, asked who was; and on having the intending jockeys pointed out to him, just favoured us with a kind of contemptuous glance, never taking any further notice of us.

The celebrated Captain was a slight man, about five feet eight inches, with not a particularly pleasant look about his eyes, and looking far more the jock than the soldier. The steeple-chases were fixed for the next day at 2.30 P.M., but, as a matter of fact, all the riders were on the ground long before that for the purpose of examining the ground and the fences.

The Major came to see me duly weighed out, and gave me instructions as to riding—that I was not on any account to race with everyone who came alongside me, nor to make the running at first, unless the pace was very slow and muddling, of which there was little danger, for quite half the jocks, he said, would go off as if they were in for a five furlong spin, and not for a four mile steeple-chase.

I was to lie behind, though handy, until we came to the descent to the stream and then make the pace down and home as hot as I could,—to find out the "dicky forelegs," he said, knowing that Jerry's were like steel.

We all got down to the post pretty punctually, and, of course, in a race of this description, the starter had no difficulty in dropping his flag at the first attempt.

I gave Jerry his head, and to my joy he took the first fence as straight and quietly as possible, so taking a pull at him, I was at once passed by some half dozen men (the gallant "Gardener" amongst them) going as hard as they could tear. It was lucky for them that the fences were light and old, as most of the horses rushed through them. When they got to the bullfinch, one horse refused, and another attempting to, slipped up and lay in a very awkward looking lump, jock and all close under it. The rest having been a little steadied took it fairly enough. Jerry jumped it as coolly as possible, like the regular old stager that he was, in spite of Captain Lane coming up at the time with a great rush, evidently hoping to make him refuse.

When we landed on the other side a ludicrous spectacle presented itself, the gallant "Gardener" being right on his horse's neck, making frantic attempts to get back into his saddle, which were quite unsuccessful, and the horse coming to the next fence, a post and rail, quietly took it standing, then putting down his head slipped his rider off and galloped on without him.

The field now began to come back to us very quickly, and soon the leading lot were Vincent of ours, a splendid rider, as I thought, and as it turned out, my most dangerous opponent, with a Carabinier in close attendance; then myself, with Captain Lane waiting on me, and watching the pair of us most attentively, so that it seemed almost impossible that I should have any chance of slipping him. However, an opportunity did present itself at length, which I took advantage of—hearing a horse coming up a tremendous "rattle" on my right.

I looked round to see who and what it was. Lane, noticing what I was doing, looked round too. Seeing this I loosed Jerry's head, and giving him at the same time a slight touch with the spur, he shot out completely—slipping the Captain, passing the Carabinier, and getting head and head with Vincent. Down the hill we went as hard as we could, clearing the water side by side. At the grip in the fields beyond I gained slightly by not taking a steadier at Jerry, trusting to his eyesight and cleverness to avoid grief.

As we got to the best fence, the ugly boundary one, I did take a pull, the jump looking as nasty a one as could well be picked out; however, the old horse did it safely, and Vincent and myself landed side by side in the winning field, amidst most tremendous shouting and cheering from our men, who were standing as thick as thick could be on each side of the course.

The excitement was terrific as we came up, apparently tied together, but giving Jerry a couple of sharp cuts with the whip, I found my leg gradually passing Vincent's, until at length I was nearly opposite his horse's head, and thus we passed the winning post, to my great relief. I did not know how much my opponent's horse had left in him, and expected him to come up with a rush at the last, in which case I doubted whether I should be able to get anything more out of Jerry in time, as he was rather a lazy horse, though possessing enormous "bottom."

I had scarcely pulled up and turned round to go to the scales, before I met the Major, who told me I was "not to make a fool of myself and dismount," before the clerk of the scales told me to, and then he pitched into me for riding at the "Grip," as I did, apprising me at the same time that he did not care how I risked my neck, but "I might have hurt the horse," adding, after a pause, and with a grunt, "but you won."

The delight of our men was so great at two of their officers being first and second, that it was all that Vincent and myself could do to avoid being carried about on their shoulders after we had weighed in.

The gallant captain was most awfully disgusted at being beaten by "a couple of boys," and went off immediately—resisting all invitations to stop and dine at mess. I subsequently found out that when I slipped him (at which he was particularly angry) he gave his horse a sharp cut with his whip, which seemed quite to upset it.

On coming down to the water the horse jumped short—dropping his hind legs in, and at the "Grip," nearly got in, only saving itself by bucking over it, and at the big boundary absolutely came down on landing, though his rider managed to keep his seat.

As for myself, I need not say how delighted I was at winning my first steeplechase, though the Major did tell me that a monkey would have ridden as well, and helped the horse as much as I did. "But I won" was always my reply.

HOW I WON MY HANDICAP

TOLD BY THE WINNER

It was a foot-racing handicap, run just after Christmas at Sheffield, and how I came to win happened in this wise. At eighteen I found myself still living, say, at Stockton-on-Tees, on the borders of Yorkshire, the town of my birth. My trade was that of a wood-turner, and with but half my time served. "Old Tubby" found me an unwilling apprentice, who had not the least inclination for work. Stockton, though only a little place, is noted for sporting and games of all sorts—but particularly for cricket. I played, of course, but they didn't "reckon" much of me, except for fielding. "Sikey," who was a moulder, and I, kept ferrets and dogs, too, and on Sundays we used to go up the "Teeside" after rabbits, or rats, or anything we could get. Sometimes we stripped and had a "duck," and then we ran on the bank barefoot. I could give him half a score yards start in a field's length, and win easily; but often I didn't try to get up till close upon the hedge we had agreed should be the winning-post. My father had been coachman to a sporting gent who kept race-horses, and the old man used to talk for everlasting about the "Chifney rush." When first Sikey and I ran I tried to beat him, so he made me give a start. Then I thought of the 'cute old jockey, and I used to try and get up and win in the last yard or so.

One day Locker, who had formerly kept a running ground at Staleybridge, met me, and asked if I'd go out with him next Saturday and have a spin. I told him I "didn't mind;" so we went up the turnpike till a straight level bit was found, and he stepped 100 yards, leaving me at the start, saying, "Come away as hard as thou can, whenever thou art ready." He had his hands in his topcoat pocket all the while, and when I finished, we walked on a bit, neither speaking for a quarter of a mile further, when he looked at his watch and said it was "getting dinner-time." Soon after he looked again, and then "took stock o' me from head to foot," and as we passed the ground I had run over, he asked, "Canst run another hundred?" I told him I could; but this time he pulled off his own coat, and said, "We'll go together." He was quickest off, but I could have passed him any time, just as I used to pass Sikey. When we got nearly to the finish I "put it on" and just got home first. He seemed pleased and told me not to say a word to anybody, but come down and meet him again. I didn't know what he was about at all, but I said "All right," and next Saturday went to the same place. Locker was there, and two other coves with him, as I hadn't seen before. One was a tall thin un he called "Lanky," and the other was little and wiry, and rather pock-pitted. He said, "Let's all four run for a 'bob' a-piece, and you three give me two yards start?" But they wouldn't; so he said, I should run the "long un" for a crown. That was soon settled, and just before we started, Locker whispered to me, "Beat him, lad, if thou canst; I want him licked, he is such a bragger. We'll share t' crown if thou wins." The little un set us off, and Locker was judge. Well, we got away together, and I headed him in by five yards easy. Locker fairly danced, he was so pleased; and though Lanky grumbled a bit at first to part with his "crown," he was soon all right. We went to Locker's to dinner, and talked about "sprinting," as they called it, all the afternoon. I told 'em I'd never run at all before except for fun, and they seemed "fairly staggered." They asked if I would run a match for £5 next week, and I told 'em I didn't mind. Locker said I was a "good un," and I might "win £100 if I'd nobbut stick tu him." Well, we agreed that I was to do just as he directed, and receive a sovereign for myself if I won by just a foot, and two pound if I ran a dead heat, letting the "novice" who was to be my opponent catch me at the finish. I never "split" to anybody except Sikey, and he went to see the race. Over a hundred people were there, and off we started. Everybody thought I was winning, but I "shammed tired," and he beat me about three inches, the judge said. Locker swore it was a dead heat, and as he had laid 2 to 1 on me I thought he'd lost a lot of money. As we went home, he said, "There's £2 for thee, lad; thou did it wonderful well; I shall match thee again next Saturday for £20: we might as well have it as anybody else." Well, during the week I was out with him every night, and he said, "Stick to me, and we'll mak these coves sit up. Thou'rt a thunderin' good un, and we'll gan to Sheffield together in less nor six months if thou can keep thysel to thysel." Of course I was pleased, and I bought a new pair of running-shoes with spikes in. He showed me The Sporting Life next week, with a challenge in that "'Locker's lad,' not satisfied with his late defeat, will take a yard in a 100 from the 'Stockton Novice,' for £25 or £50 a-side. A deposit to the editor and articles sent to Mr Locker's running-grounds, Stockton, will meet with immediate attention." I was quite struck, and said I wondered what "Old Tubby" would think if he knew. Locker said, "Go ask him for thy indentures, and if he won't give 'em up, ask him what he'll tak for 'em." So I did, and if I hadn't been in such a hurry, he'd have thrown 'em at me, and said he was glad to get rid of an idle rascal. As it was, I told him I'd something else to do, and he demanded £3 for my release. Locker gave me the money next day, and I soon put the indentures in the fire; thanking my stars for the escape. After this I lived at Locker's altogether, and in two or three days an answer came from the "Novice," to say he'd give 2 yards start in 150. Well, that didn't seem to suit Locker, so he replied, through the paper again, that "Sooner than not run again, his lad should run the 'Novice' 100 yards level at Kenham grounds for £25 a side. To run in three weeks." Articles came and were signed on these terms. Then he said, "Thou needn't train at all, though I want thee to win this time by nearly a yard; just stay a bit longer than before, and don't let him quite catch thee. Make a good race of it, but be sure and win." We often went to the old spot on the turnpike, and once he took a tape and measured the ground. He had stepped it within a yard and a half. At last he showed me his watch that he had won in a handicap. There was a long hand which jumped four times in a second, and he could start it or stop it by pressing a spring whenever he liked. Then I held it while he ran, and found he was just 11 sec. doing his 100 yards. I tried, and was "ten and a beat," which he told me was reckoned first-rate time. While I stopped with him I found out all about "sprints" and "quarters," and how long a man ought to be running different distances. I asked, too, about the last race; why he could afford to give me £2 when I lost? He said the two "fivers" he had bet were with "pals," and he lost nothing but my stake. Then he told me about the little man and Lanky, whom I had met with him and run against. The "long 'un," he said, was a very good "trial horse," who could keep his tongue in his head, and would "stand in" if I won anything. The little un had been on business in the north, and came round to see him (Locker). It was all chance his being there, but I should see him again, farther south, where he kept a running ground. Well, the day for our race came at last, and we went to Kenham. I was wrapped in a blanket after we stripped, and a stout man, called Woldham, who stood referee, whispered something to Locker, who replied that I was fit and sure to win. They laid 5 to 4 against me at first, but presently I heard evens offered, and then £22 to £20 on me, and that was as far as Locker's friends would go. We had a lot of "fiddling," as they call it, at the mark, but presently we jumped away, I with an advantage of about a yard. I had made the gap quite four yards at half the distance, and then "died away" till near the post, where, as the Chronicle next Monday said, I "struggled manfully, and took the tape first by half a yard; time, 10⅖ sec." Hadn't we a jaw as we went back! Locker said I was a "wonderful clever lad," and that Woldham had told him I should be "heard of again." We both laughed, and I got £5 for winning. With this I bought a new rig out, and everybody at Stockton that knew me said I was "ruined for life." They all wanted to know where the togs came from, however, but I kept that to myself.

It was now September, and Locker said, "I'll enter thee for a handicap." So he did, and shortly afterwards we went to Kenham again, where, by his directions, I was beat for my heat, with 5 yards start in 120. About a week later, we had a long talk, and then he said, "Dost know what I've been doing, lad?" I told him I thought he meant to get me a good start and try if I could win. "Thou'rt partly right," he said, "but I've been running thee 100 yards, and letting thee lose in t' last few strides. This makes 'em think thou can't stay. I know thou'rt as good at 150 as 100, so I shall train thee and run thee at Sheffield this Christmas. If thou can win there, we can earn £1000 between us, and if thou can only run into a place, we shall make £50 or £100 apiece; but mind, we shall let t' cat out o' t' bag: thou'll never get on a mark again after trying once." Presently, Merling and Stemmerson advertised a £40 handicap at Kenham, and I entered; then came the big Sheffielder of £80, and down went my name for that too. I lived very regular all this time, went to bed early, and practised the distance every day, till Locker said I was a "level time" man, and if I didn't win it would be a "fluke." At last the start appeared: I got in at 7 yards in the 130 at Newcastle, and my mark was 67 in 210 yards at Ryde Park. Locker was delighted: "Thou can win 'em both in a walk, lad," he said, again and again. Then the betting quotations were sent up week after week, and I was at 50 to 1 long enough at Sheffield. There wasn't much doing on the 130 yards race, so Locker said I might go there on the Saturday and lose my first heat. He didn't lay out a penny any way till we went into Alf Wilner's, the Punch Bowl, on Sunday night. Somebody presently asked my price, and, to my surprise, up got the little pock-marked man I had met, and said he was commissioned to take 60 to 1 to £5, just for a "fancy" bet. A big Sheffielder opened his book and said he might as well have the "fiver" as not, and there I was backed to win £300 already. Locker and I went away to bed about nine o'clock, and next morning in came the little 'un at six to tell us he'd ta'en five fifties more, then five forties, ten thirties, and ten twenties, and I was now in the market at 12 to 1 taken and offered. My heat was the sixth, and there were five starters marked. First came "old Scratch" of Pendleton at 59 yards, then Roundtree of Huddersfield at 62, and myself at 67; the other didn't turn up. The pistol was fired and away we went, and, as Locker had started me hundreds of times, so that I could "get off the mark" well, I don't think I lost any ground. At about half way I could hear somebody on my left, but I daren't look round. Afterwards I found "Scratch" had tried to "cut me down," but it was all no use, and I took away the tape by two yards good. Everybody cheered, for betting on the heat had been 7 to 4 on "Scratch" and 3 to 2 against me. At the close of the day there were ten runners left in for the final heat, and "my price" was 4 to 1, Roper of Staleybridge being the favourite at 6 to 4 against him. Locker said he had laid off £250 at 5 to 1 directly after the heat, so that our party stood to win £1000 exactly, of which I was to have £200 if I "landed." We were together till bedtime, and slept in a double room. At seven next morning we took a stroll, and just as we got to Alf's to breakfast somebody put a bit of paper into my hand and then shot away. I slipped it in my pocket, and said "nowt" till after breakfast, when I read on it, "£150 for thyself before the start if thou'll run fourth." I asked Locker what it meant, and he laughed, and said they wanted me to "rope." When we went out again the little fellow pulled out a roll of notes and showed 'em to me; but I meant to win if possible, so I shook my head. As the morning passed I "sort of funked" the race, but then I thought, "I were a made man if I copped." So I just said to mysel', "Bill, lad, haul in the slack," and off we went to the grounds. I never felt fitter either before or since; and after Roper got off badly and was beat a short foot, I was sure the final heat was my own. My second heat was an easy win, and "Lord, how the Sheffielders did shout" when I ran in three yards ahead without being fully extended! They laid 7 to 4 on me for the deciding race, which was the hardest of the lot. Hooper of Stanningly went from the same mark; we afterwards found out they'd played a similar game with him. They'd "pulled" him for two handicaps, and let him lose all his matches, and now he had been backed to win £600. He beat me at starting, and before we got half way they cried "Hooper wins." I was a good yard behind him, but with a hard strain I got level, and we ran shoulder and shoulder till just on the tape, where I threw myself forward, with the old "Chifney rush," and just won by a bare half-yard. Locker fairly hugged me, and, half blind though I was with the tough race, the "tykes" shoulder-heighted and carried me off to the house.

In presents, and with my share, I got £230, and thought I'd put it away in the bank. But that night we all had champagne, and I went to bed quite queer and dizzy-like. Next day was the same, and on Thursday we took train to Manchester, where I was invited to stop a week or two. Locker left me and went home, telling me to take care of myself. I wish I'd gone too, for what with meeting betting-men and playing cards and buying swell clothes, to say nothing of dresses for a fresh sweetheart, I soon got awful "fast." Then we used to sit up at nights playing "seven's the main," and I wasn't lucky or summut; but, however, in six weeks I'd got through half my money. One night we started cutting through the pack, and then played "Blind Hookey," and next morning the little pock-pitted man came up and called me a "flat," and said I'd fair thrown my winnings into the fire. He didn't know much about what had gone on, and when I told him "I knocked down close on £150," he said he daren't send me back to Stockton. Well, I stopped at Manchester altogether; and during the next two or three years I won heaps of races, learned the "rope trick," and found out whose "stable" every lad trained from. I won hundreds of pounds, which, having all come over the "devil's back," went the same way. I'm twenty-three now, but I can't do "level time" any longer without six weeks' training, although even yet, at 100 yards, very few lads can "pull off their shirt" every day in the week and lick me. I like the life very well—it's free and easy; but I wish Locker had ta'en me back and made my matches. He's clever, he is, and knows when to "let a fellow's head loose" without halloaing.

THE FIRST DAY OF THE SEASON, AND ITS RESULTS

I quite agree with the distinguished foreign nobleman who declared that "Nothing was too good to go foxing in;" and with the immortal Jorrocks of Handley Cross fame, I exclaim, "'Unting, my beloved readers, is the image of war with only ten per cent. of its dangers."

Ever since I was an unbreeched urchin, and my only steed a rough Shetland pony, across whose bare back my infantine legs could scarcely stride, I have looked forward to a day's hunting with the keenest relish. The preliminary sport of cub-hunting—with its early-dawn meets: bad scent, consequent upon fallen leaves and decayed vegetable matter; riotous young hounds, which can scarcely be brought to hunt upon any terms; timid, nervous young foxes, who hardly dare poke their sharp noses out of covert—only serves to give a greater zest as it were to the opening day. One or two woodland runs, just sufficient to breathe the well-trained hunter or take the exuberant spirits (the accompaniments of high feeding and no work) from the young one, after a stripling Reynard, who as yet has no line of country of his own, and hardly dares to venture far from the place of his birth, ending with a kill just to blood the young hounds, only makes the longing for the first day of the season more intense.

Not one of her Majesty's subjects throughout her vast dominions—so vast indeed are they that, as the song tells us, "the sun never sets on them"—not one, I say, of her Majesty's lieges looked forward more anxiously than I did to the first day of the hunting season of 18—, for why should I be too explicit about dates, or let all the world know that I am so ancient as to remember anything so long buried in the past? I had just returned to old England with a year's leave from my regiment, then in India. I was possessed of capital health and spirits, was only just six-and-twenty years of age, had five hundred pounds at my bankers, and two as good nags in my stable as ever a man laid his leg across. "Hunting for ever!" I cried, as I strolled into Seamemup and Bastemwell's, the unrivalled breechesmakers' establishment in the Strand, to order a few pair of those most necessary adjuncts to the sporting man's wardrobe previous to leaving town. "Hunting for ever!" and of all the packs in England, commend me to my old acquaintance, those friends of my boyhood, the Easyallshire Muggers. I am not sure but that, strictly speaking, the term "mugger" ought only be applied to those packs of hounds which are used for that peculiar pastime which, to again quote the immortal Jorrocks, "is only fit for cripples, and them as keeps donkeys," viz., harriers.

Be that as it may, the pack I now speak of were, though called muggers, bonâ fide foxhounds, and as such, only used in the "doing to death" of that wily animal.

The country which had as it were given birth to this distinguished pack presented to the hunting man very much the same features as do most parts of England. There were the same number of ditches and dingles to be got over somehow, the same gates which would and would not be opened, the same fences, stiles, and heavers to be cleared, the same woodland parts to be hunted, from which it was next to impossible to get a fox away, and to which every one said he would never come again; but for all that no one ever kept his word, for there were just the very same number of sportsmen to be seen at the very next meet held in the district; thus proving that foxhunting, even under difficulties, is still a most fascinating diversion; and there were the same snug-lying gorse coverts, from which a run was sure to be obtained over a flat well-enclosed country, which gave both man and horse as much as ever their united efforts could accomplish, to be there or thereabouts at the finish. Nor were the meets of the Easyallshire Muggers, advertised in The Field, dissimilar in any respect to those of other packs of hounds, for there were an equal number of cross roads, turnpike gates, public houses, gibbets, woods, sign-posts, and milestones, as elsewhere. Well, to enjoy a season's sport with this so distinguished hunt was my intention; and no sooner had I completed the requisite arrangements with regard to my hunting toggery, which a residence of some half dozen years in India had rendered necessary, than I took up my abode in the little town of Surlyford, at the comfortable hotel rejoicing in the mythological sign of the Silent Woman, a fabulous personage surely, to be classed with Swans with Two Necks, Green Men, and other creatures who never had any existence. The first meet of the Easyallshire Muggers was settled, so said the county paper, to take place at the fourth milestone on the Surlyford road. Thither I repaired, fully equipped in all the splendour of a new pink, immaculate cords, brown-tinted tops, my blue birds'-eye scarf, neatly folded and fastened with a pin bearing a most appropriate device, viz., a real fox's tooth. In my impatience to be up and doing on this our opening day, I arrived at the trysting-place, from whence I was to woo my favourite pastime, some half hour or more before the master and his pack were due. I had, therefore, ample leisure to receive the greetings of my numerous old friends and acquaintances, as they came up from all parts, and in all directions, on all sorts and all sizes of nags, and at all kinds of paces, to the place of meeting. First to arrive on that useful steed yclept "Shanks's pony," slouching along, clad in rusty velveteen, baggy brown cord breeches and gaiters, billycock, as he termed his wideawake hat, on head, a stout ashen stick, cut from a neighbouring coppice, in hand, and ten to one a quantity of wires in his pockets, was handsome, dark-eyed, good-for-nothing, scampish, dishonest Gipsy Jim—the sometime gamekeeper, when he could get any to employ him, but oftener the poaching, drinking, thieving vagabond of the neighbourhood. A broad grin of recognition, and a touch of the hat on the part of the Gipsy one, and an exclamation on mine of "Bless me, Jim! not hanged yet?" placed us once again on the old familiar footing of "I will tell you all I know about foxes" (and who could afford better information than one whose habits and disposition partook more of the vermin than the man?), "providing you give me a shilling to drink your health." Gipsy Jim and I had hardly interchanged these civilities, when, trotting along on a stout, handsome, six-year-old, in capital condition, though, if anything, a little too fat (not a bad fault, however, at the beginning of the season), came farmer Thresher, of Beanstead, a florid, yellow-haired, red-whiskered, jovial, hard-riding, independent agriculturist, who, on the strength of having been at school in years gone by with some of the neighbouring squires, myself amongst the number, called us all freely by our surnames, forgetting to prefix the accustomed Mister, and thus giving great umbrage to some and causing them always to pointedly address him as "Mr Thresher." Our mutual salutations had hardly come to an end when we were joined by half a dozen more sturdy yeomen, able and willing to go, let the pace be ever so severe, and all of them contributing their five pounds yearly to the support of the Easyallshire Muggers, "spite of wheat, sir, at fourteen shillings a bag."

Young Boaster next turns up, a swaggering blade from a neighbouring hunt, who is always abusing the Easyallshire hounds, and bragging of his own prowess, which consists of riding extraordinary distances to far-off meets, and doing nothing when he gets there, save telling wonderful and fabulous stories of what he had done last time he was out, and what he intended to do then. He is succeeded by Dr Bolus, "the sporting Doctor," as he is called, who must be making a very handsome fortune in his profession, if his knowledge of medicine is anything like his judgment in horseflesh, his skill in the pigskin, or his acquaintance with the line of a fox. After Bolus, on a three-legged screw, a wonder to every one how it is kept at all on its understandings, comes Aloes, the veterinary surgeon, a pleasant-spoken, florid, little old man, skilful in his business, ever agreeing, with his "That I would, sir," and one whom I would much prefer to attend me when sick than many a professor of the healing art among men. The majesty of the law is upheld next by Mr Sheepskin, the attorney, a gentlemanly man, a lightweight, and one who rides, when need be, as hard as if not harder than any one. Nor is the Church absent (for we have not a few clerical subscribers to the Easyallshire Muggers), but is well represented in the person of the Rev. Mr Flatman, a good-looking, well-built, foxy-whiskered divine, whose handling of the ribbons on the coach-box, and seat on horseback, would entitle him to a deanery at the very least, could the Broad-Church party but come into power. His small country parish, however, does not suffer by the fondness of its rector for the sports of the field; having a hard-working and most exemplary curate, he is still a painstaking and estimable parish priest, and much preferred, I doubt not, by all his parishioners to any more busy and interfering divine of either of the other two schools of divinity. I myself am by no means the sole member of the military profession present, for we are here of all ranks, from the just-joined subaltern to the gallant colonel of the county militia, a stout fine-looking veteran, none of your feather-bed soldiers, and one who, spite of his weight, is an exceedingly difficult man to beat across country. "Mammon," as it is the fashion nowadays to call that useful article, money, is seen approaching in the person of the Surlyford banker, who, wisely flinging business to the winds at least twice in the week, gets astride a good-looking, nearly thoroughbred nag, and finds accepting bullfinches, negotiating ditches, and discounting gates, stiles, &c., a much more healthy and more pleasant, if not more profitable, occupation than everlastingly grubbing after filthy lucre.

The Master now makes his appearance, tall and upright, knowing thoroughly the duties of his office, and if not quite so bold and determined a rider as in years gone by, still making up for want of nerve in knowledge of the country, and for lack of dash in careful riding and judicious nicking-in. Suffice it to say, that at the finish, his absence is never observed, though how he came to be there is better known to the second-rank horsemen than to the flyers. The huntsman and whip are much the same as those worthies are everywhere; but the hounds, how to describe them I know not.

The Easyallshire Muggers set all rules regarding the make, size, and symmetry of foxhounds at defiance. They show almost better sport, and kill more foxes, than any pack in the kingdom; and yet they are as uneven as a ploughed field, and as many shapes and sizes as a charity school. I can only say, "handsome is as handsome does;" and if my canine friends are not pleasant to the eye of the connoisseur—if they come not up to the standard of Beckford Somerville, and other writers who have described a perfect foxhound, still they work beautifully—which to my mind is far preferable to looking beautiful—and will run and kill foxes with any hounds in England. The huntsman and whip, though not so well mounted (economy is the order of the day with the Easyallshire Muggers) as we would wish to see them, yet manage somehow to get across the country, and to be with their hounds; though for the matter of that, such is the sagacity of the Easyallshire pack, they can very frequently do quite as well without the assistance of their ruler and guide as with it. The Easyallshire Hunt, as the name implies, is an easy-going sort of concern, in which every man, gentle and simple, has a finger in the pie; every subscriber imagining that he has a perfect right, on the strength of his subscription, to hunt, whip-in, or otherwise direct the movements of the hounds whenever opportunity occurs. But for-rard! for-rard on! or I shall be at the fourth milestone on the Surlyford road all day, instead of drawing that inviting piece of gorse covert which lies so pleasant and warm, with its southern aspect on yonder bank. A guinea to a gooseberry, a fox lies there!

Joe, the huntsman, now trots along through the somewhat bare and brown pasture fields towards the covert; the pack, eager and keen for the fray, clustering round the heels of his horse. A few moments only elapse, and the sea of gorse is alive with hounds poking here, there, and everywhere, seeking the lair of sly Reynard. Old experience having taught me that Gipsy Jim's knowledge of the fox and his habits (for being half-brother to the varmint in his nature, how can it fail to be otherwise?) would serve me in good stead, I station myself near to him in order to have a good view of "Mr Reynolds," as Jim calls the cunning animal, when he breaks covert. Nor am I wrong in my conjecture; for after a few pleasant notes from old Bellman, who hits upon the place where Master Fox crossed a ride early this morning, and a "hark to Bellman" from Joe the huntsman, out jumps, almost into Jim's arms, as fine a fox as ever wore a brush. Master Reynard looks somewhat astonished at being brought so suddenly face to face with a two-legged monster, and seems half inclined to turn back again to his hiding-place; but, perhaps judging from Jim's varmint look that no danger might be apprehended from that quarter, and being warned by the deep notes of old Bellman that his late quarters were untenable, he throws back his head as if to sniff the pleasant morning breeze, and giving his brush a gentle wave of defiance, boldly takes to the open, and starts across the field which surrounds the covert at a good rattling pace. Gipsy Jim grins from ear to ear with delight, showing his white regular teeth, at the same time holding up his hand as a warning to me to keep silence for a few seconds, so as not to spoil sport by getting the fox headed back. The moment, however, Master Reynard is safely through the neighbouring hedge, Jim's tremendous view-halloa makes the whole country ring again. This is the signal for every bumpkin and footman to shout and halloa with might and main, thus making the necessary confusion of the find worse confounded still. "Hold your noisy tongues," shout the Master, huntsman, whip, and all the horsemen; but "Hold your noisy tongues" they cry in vain. "Tallyho! tallyho! tallyho!" yell the footmen, totally regardless of all expostulation. But crafty Jim, knowing the idiosyncrasy of the yokels, has made all safe by his silence, until the red-coated rascal is well away. "Hark! halloa!" "Hark! halloa!" roar the field. "Tootle, tootle!" goes Joe's horn, reëchoed by an asthmatical effort in the same direction, on the part of the worthy master, who blows as if his horn was full of dirt. The hounds, however, are accustomed to the sound, feeble as it is, and all rush to the spot where Master, huntsman, and Gipsy Jim are all cheering them exactly at the place where foxy broke away. What a burst of music now strikes upon the ear, far superior to the delights of any concert it has ever been my lot to be present at, as the hounds acknowledge with joy the rapture they feel at the strong scent left behind by him they had so unceremoniously disturbed from his comfortable lodgings! But the scent is too good for us to dwell here for description, and away they go at a killing pace, which, if it lasts long enough, will get to the bottom of many a gallant steed there present. And now comes the rush of horsemen amidst the cries of "Hold hard! don't spoil your sport!" of the master, and the "'Old 'ard!" of the huntsman, who has an eye to tips, and therefore restrains his wrath in some measure. But the Easyallshireans are not to be kept back by any such remonstrances and expostulations as these, and those who mean to be with the hounds throughout the run, hustle along to get a forward place; whilst the knowing and cunning ones, with the Master at their head, turn short round, and make for a line of gates which lie invitingly open, right in the direction which the fox has taken. I get a good start, and being well mounted, sail away, and am soon alongside of Joe the huntsman, whose horse, though a screw, and not very high in condition, is obliged to go, being compelled thereto by its rider. A stiff-looking fence, which I charge at the same moment as Joe, who takes away at least a perch of fencing, and thus lets many a muff through, lands us into the next field, and affords a fair view of the hounds streaming away a little distance before us. But why should I describe the run? The Field, weekly, gives much more graphic descriptions of such things than I am able to write; let me, therefore, confine my narrative to what befell my individual self.

A rattling burst of twenty minutes rendered the field, as may be well imagined, very select, and it would in all probability have become still more so, had not a fortunate check given horses and men a few moments' breathing time, thus enabling the cunning riders to get up to the hounds. "Away we go again, and I will be there at the finish," I exclaimed, as pressing my cap firmly on my head, and shutting my eyes, I ride at a tremendous bullfinch, the thick boughs and sharp thorns of which scratch my face all over and nearly decapitate me as I burst through it. But, as in the case of the renowned John Gilpin, it is—

Another ten minutes' best pace and the fox is evidently sinking before us; but, alas! it was not to be my lot to see the gallant animal run into and pulled down in the open, after as fine a run as was ever seen. Trim-kept hedges, well-hung, stout, and newly-painted white gates, had shown me that for the last few moments, he had entered the domain of some proprietor, whose estate certainly presented the very pink of neatness. Little indeed did I dream that there would exist in the very heart of Easyallshire one so benighted as to object to the inroads made upon him by that renowned pack, the Muggers. But I reckoned without my host, or rather, as the sequel will show, with my host; for as, in my endeavours to save my now somewhat exhausted horse, I rode at what appeared an easy place in a very high fence, bounded on the off-side with a stiff post and rail, an irate elderly gentleman, gesticulating, shouting, and waving an umbrella in his hand, suddenly rose up as it were from the very bowels of the earth, just as my steed was preparing to make his spring, thus causing the spirited animal to rear up, and, overbalancing himself, to fall heavily to the ground with me under him. When I next recovered consciousness and opened my eyes, I was being borne along on a hurdle, by the author of my misfortunes—a gray-haired, piebald-whiskered, stout, little, red-faced old gentleman—and two of his satellites, whom I rightly conjectured to be the coachman and gardener; but the pain of my broken leg made me relapse into unconsciousness, nor did the few wits I by nature possess return to me again until I was laid on a bed, and a medical practitioner of the neighbourhood was busy at work setting my fractured limb. To make a long story short, I remained under the roof of Major Pipeclay—for that was the name of the irascible little gentleman whose hatred of hunting, hounds, and horses had caused my suffering—until my wounded limb was well again, the worthy old major doing all in his power to make amends for the catastrophe his absurd violence had brought about.

At the expiration of six weeks I was able to move about on crutches; at the termination of twice that period, I was well again, and had, moreover, fallen irretrievably in love with the bright eyes and pretty face of Belinda Pipeclay, one of the major's handsome daughters. Thinking, in my ignorance of the fair sex, that the child of so irascible a papa—having been in her juvenile days well tutored under the Solomonian code of "sparing the rod, and spoiling the child"—must therefore, of necessity, make a submissive and obedient wife, I proposed, was accepted, obtained the major's consent, and became a Benedict.

Dear reader, I am really ashamed to confess the truth: I have been severely henpecked ever since. Whether Belinda possesses the same antipathy to hounds, horses, and hunting men as her progenitor, I cannot possibly tell; for returning to India soon after my marriage, I had no opportunity of there testing her feelings in that respect. Now the increasing number of mouths in our nursery compels a decreasing ratio of animals in my stable, and I am reduced to one old broken-winded cripple, which I call "the Machiner." He takes Mrs Sabretache and myself to the market town on a Saturday, and mamma, papa, and the little Sabretaches to church on the following day.

A DAY WITH THE DRAG

BY THE EDITOR

To my mind there are few more pleasant ways of spending an afternoon, than in having a good rousing gallop with the Drag. Of course there be Drag-hunts and Drag-hunts, and unless the sport is conducted smartly and well, 'twere better far that it should not be done at all. The hounds need not be bred from the Beaufort Justice, but on the other hand, they need not be a set of skulking, skirting brutes, that one "wouldn't be seen dead with." Of course the members of such hunts ride in mufti—more familiarly called, in these degenerate days, "ratcatcher"—but I always think that Huntsman and Whips should be excepted from this rule, and anyone who is privileged to share the fun of the Royal Artillery Draghounds will find that the high officials of the hunt are arrayed, not certes, as was Solomon in all his glory, but in the very neatest and smartest of "livery," and nothing could look more sportsmanlike than the dark-blue coat, red collar and cuffs, surmounted by the orthodox black velvet hunting-cap, which are de rigeur at Woolwich now. When I first joined in their cheery gallops, there was no hunt uniform, and the appearance of the "turn out" suffered accordingly. Now, nothing is left to be desired in this direction. Good fellowship in the field we have always had, and does not this go far indeed to make up the sum of one's enjoyment? When every man out, almost without exception, knows the rest of the field personally; when a kindly hand is always ready to be stretched forth to aid a brother in distress—when you know every man well enough to say "mind you don't jump on me, old chap, if this 'hairy' comes base over apex at the next fence!" or, "Let me have that place first; I can't hold this beggar!" things all seem so much pleasanter than they are in a country where you know few people, and don't know them very well: yes, sociability, depend upon it, goes very far indeed to make up the charm of any sport, and in none more so than in that of crossing a country.

Let us imagine ourselves arrived at Woolwich and "done well" at luncheon in the R.A. mess. And here I would observe, par parenthese, that it would require a big effort of imagination to picture to yourself any occasion upon which you were not "done well" within those hospitable portals. About 2.30 when we are half way through that cigar in the ante-room, which alone "saves one's life" after such a luncheon, a crack of the whip, and a "gently there, Waterloo!" brings us quickly to the window overlooking the parade ground, where hounds have just arrived in charge of the Master and two Whips. We hurry out, after a farewell to such of our kindly hosts as are not intending to accompany us, and find that that big-boned black horse with a hog mane, is intended to carry "Cæsar and his fortunes" this afternoon. A right good one he is, too, with a perfect snaffle mouth. He is "not so young as he was," but "sweet are the uses of adversity," and this fact has its advantages, as he will not fret and worry, and pull one's arms off before starting: he has "joined the band," which is also an excellent thing in its way, because the man just ahead of you can hear him coming, and will, you hope, get out of the way at the next fence! After a short period of moving up and down the parade ground, and exchanging greetings with a few whom you have not had a chance of speaking to before, the word is given, and at that indescribable and, to me, most direful pace, a "hound's jog," off we go along the road over the Common.

How the bricks and mortar fiend has been working his wicked will with the place since last we saw it! The trots out to the several meets get longer and longer as season after season rolls by. What was once almost our best line, and where for two or three years the annual point-to-point race was held, is now an unwieldy mass of buildings, prominent amongst which stands that gigantic fraud on the long-suffering ratepayers, the Fever Hospital, with its staff of 350 to wait on a maximum of 450 patients!

At last we emerge from the region of building and railway "enterprise" (save the mark!) and see glimpses of the country ahead of us. A winding lane traversed, and we find a gate propped open on our left: here a halt is called. The Master rides into the field, whilst the Whips remain where they are in charge of the pack. Two minutes later our worthy chief returns and addresses the assembled company, not in the studied beauty of language employed by Cicero, nor in the perfervid oratory of Demosthenes, but in a manner very much more to the point than most of the harangues of those somewhat long-winded classics. "Let 'em get over the first fence: then you can ride like blazes!" he says.

The Whips move forward gently: hounds are all bristling with excitement, for they seem to know as well as we that the moment for action has arrived. "Gently there, Safety! have a care, then!" Yow, yow, yow! from the hounds. Toot, toot, from the Master's horn, and away they go. "Do wait, you dev—— fellows! You'll be bang into the middle of 'em! There, now, you can go and be blessed to you!" Amid a confused rush of horses, clatter of hoofs, and babel of tongues, we are away, and thundering down to the first fence, a big quickset. With a crash the first Whip is over or through; it doesn't matter which so long as he finds himself "all standing" on the right side. Half-a-dozen men make for the same place and great is the thrusting thereunto. The first and second get over: the third man falls: the next alights almost on top of him: now comes a gallant "just joined" one, who does not jump when his horse does, and then that first fence becomes of no further interest to us, for are we not over it, and speeding along at our best sprinting pace towards a line of post and rails, where, the Powers be praised! there is plenty of room for the whole field to have it abreast, if they wished. Two refuse at this: it is a pretty big one, and worse still the timber is new: but the next comer smashes the top rail and lets everyone through: then for three or four fields all is plain sailing—brush fences that our steeds almost gallop through, form the only obstacles. We jump into a park, and "Ware hole!" is the cry: we pull off to the right of where hounds are running in order to avoid the home of the ubiquitous bunny, but not soon enough, unluckily, to save one youngster from a tumble: the horse puts his foot in a rabbit hole and rolls over as if he is shot. "Not hurt a bit! Go on," calls out the rider, pluckily. Yes, no doubt about it, this is the game for the making of young soldiers. On we go, now descending a gentle slope to where an ominous little crowd of yokels and loafers are lining a narrow strip of green on each side: a second glance, as we rise in our stirrups for inspection purposes, shows us that this is evidently looked upon as the sensation "lep" of the run: a good sized brook, in front of which have been placed some stout, well furze-bushed hurdles. The scent has been thoughtfully laid a little on one side of this, so there is no fear of stray hounds getting in one's way. One look shows us that it will take a bit of doing, and hats are crammed on, and horses "taken by the head" in earnest, as the three leading men come along at it. A quick glance round and a lightning calculation as to where you'll go to, should your neighbour whip round or fall just in front of you, and then a vigorous hoist over the hurdles carries you just clear—and no more than just clear—of the frowning and muddy stream just beyond. The man on your left gets over also, but with one hind leg dropped in: three come slashing over, all right: then little Miffkins, in an agony of incertitude, takes a pull at his horse when within three lengths of where he should take off. Fatal mistake! for he merely succeeds in putting the break on: the horse jumps short, and just clearing the hurdles drops helplessly into the turbid stream amid the ribald jeers and laughter of the crowd assembled. Baulked by this contretemps the next horse refuses, and though ridden at the obstacle again and again, resolutely persists in remaining on the wrong side of the water. But "forrard on, forrard on!" Miffkins will get dry again—he is not hurt, in the least—and his horse will be taught an invaluable lesson in swimming. The pack is still racing away half a field ahead, but they are beginning to "string" a good deal now, from the severity of the pace. And by the same token, most of our good nags are obviously feeling that this sort of fun can't go on for ever. My own musical steed is, in especial, making the most appalling observations on the subject as we breast the next sharp slope. I feel, somehow, that he is using the equinese for "Hang it all, you know, I'm not a steam roundabout, my dear chap!" and my heart smites me. Before, however, I can make up my wavering mind as to whether conscience imperatively demands of me "a pull," or not, to my great joy, hounds suddenly throw up their heads where the drag has evidently been lifted, and we find ourselves at the ever welcome check. Most of us slip off our smoking steeds, whose shaking tails and sweat-lathered coats attest the rate at which these three miles have been covered. By twos and threes, the stragglers, and those whose luck is "out," arrive. One man has broken the cantle of his saddle, another has managed to pull his horse's bridle off in the floundering of a fall: here is a rider whose spur has been dragged off his boot: there one who has broken his girths: two men are hatless and another has lost his cigarette case, presumably whilst standing on his head after trying unsuccessfully to negotiate a stile without jumping it. However, these are but common incidents of the chase, and "all in the day's work." The troubles are taken good humouredly, and in the true spirit of philosophy. The men who have second horses out, have now mounted them, whilst the rest of us who intend riding the concluding half of the line, resume acquaintance with our splashed saddles and mud-stained steeds. Trotting off across a road, we again lay on, and have a gallop of quite five hundred yards before coming to anything in the way of an obstacle. Over a piece of timber, to the tune of a most unholy cracking of top rails, we go, and soon find ourselves approaching the far boundary which offers us the choice of a blind, hairy place, with a big ditch on the far side, a gate securely nailed up, and a greasy-looking foot-bridge adorned with several dangerous-looking holes. This last we all—as I think, wisely—eschew. Some make for the gate: the rest of us try the first-named place. One of the whips goes at it "hell for leather," and gets over. I, following him, I blush to say, rather—just a very little—too closely, utter a silent prayer that my leader may not fall, and somewhat to my astonishment feel "the musician" apparently disappearing into the bowels of the earth beneath me whilst I shoot over his head and sprawl, spread-eagled, on my hands and face into the ploughed field beyond. He has jumped short and paid the penalty by dropping into the ditch. I shout back "No" to a kindly enquiry as to whether I am hurt, and the questioner gallops on, leaving me to wrestle with the problem of how I am to extract the hog-maned one from his present retreat. As I take him by the rein and wonder how deeply his hind legs are imbedded in the sticky clay, he makes a wild flounder, plunges up the bank, rams his big, bony head into my chest and causes me to take up a most undignified position, for nothing can look much more aimless than to see the ardent sportsman attired in boots and breeches, seated involuntarily in the wet furrow of a ploughed field, his horse standing over him in an apparently menacing attitude. However, although I felt damped—and was—the animal was out of what might have been "a tight place," and I climbed into the saddle again with muddy breeches, but a cheerful heart. To catch hounds after this was, of course, out of the question, but I jogged slowly across the field I was in, and felt, I humbly confess, a thrill of unholy joy, as from the farther side of the thick hedge there, I heard a plaintive voice saying: