advantage in the eyes of my late wedded wife, I get myself up with more than common care and smartness. Alas! the new South-downs, placed in a secluded meadow at the back of the house, have one and all broke from their moorings in a state of timid insubordination ludicrous to contemplate; and I cannot resist lending my assistance to "Jacob" and his myrmidons, in reclaiming the woolly truants to their original bounds. Varnished boots harmonize but ill with a clay soil, and I am greeted "as a very untidy figure," when I at length take my seat in the pony-chaise en route for Topthorne Lodge. The Squire is not at home, having gone to shoot the outlying coverts, at Moor-bank, whither had it not been for my farming avocations I was to have accompanied him, and where he is now peppering away in all the enjoyment of a capital day's sport; so there is nothing for it but to drive quietly home again. The pony suddenly falls lame, and at the same time a tempest of wind and rain, which has been brewing in the horizon during the whole afternoon, bursts upon us in pitiless fury, and as there is not a building for miles of our road, we are exposed to the whole violence of the storm. The umbrellas have been forgotten of course, and we are drenched to the skin; Mrs. N's. recherché toilette, part of the lately acquired trousseau, being completely spoiled, and my sweet bride's silence, not to say reserve, becoming more profound with each succeeding gust. We reach Wild-wood at last, and here a dry suit of clothes, albeit indued in a smoky dressing-room, restore me to something approaching towards comfort, and I refrain from disturbing Mrs. N., in hopes that by the time dinner is announced she may have recovered her former gaiety and cheerfulness: that necessary meal is kept waiting, and the mutton irretrievably spoiled, by an enforced interview with one of my new tenants, who taking the opportunity of his return from Weatherley revel in a state of tipsy jocularity for an ill-timed interview with his landlord on matters of business, is good enough to favour me with his company for three-quarters of an hour, during which he discusses the weather, the ministry, Mrs. Nogo's health, in short every thing in the world except the point at issue, and eventually takes his departure, having effected no decided result except the ruin of my over-roasted joint. A quiet evening, a snooze over the "Quarterly" undisturbed by any music (for Mrs. Nogo confesses she has become "very idle about playing"), and a cup of tea at nine o'clock would console me for the annoyances of the day, but that my rest is interrupted and my nerves shaken by the keeper bringing in a poacher whom he has taken at this untimely hour, and whom he seems to expect, in the double capacity of magistrate and proprietor, I shall transport on the spot. The evening is concluded by a perusal of the county paper, in which the account of a horrid burglary accompanied with violence, and perpetrated at a lone farm-house not twelve miles from where we live, sends me to bed not at all satisfied that the life of a country gentleman, residing on his own property and farming his own acres, is half such a course of unruffled prosperity as in my London career I had ever been taught to consider it. 97 66 Thus the days rolled on; and as I soon got more careless about the farm, and discovered that Mrs. Nogo, with all her charms, was subject to sundry weaknesses of her sex, such as nervous attacks,' palpitations of the heart" when any thing went wrong, and "lowness of 66 spirits" when cheered by no other society than my own, I began to cast about for some amusing pursuit, which, while it took me abroad for the purpose of air and exercise, should at the same time furnish me with a little of that wholesome excitement to which I had all my life been accustomed. The Squire's hounds were generally so wide of my present residence, that one day a week with my brother-in-law was the most I could conveniently accomplish; and shooting, besides being comparatively a tame amusement, cannot last over the month of February. Suddenly the idea struck me, why should I not keep a pack of harriers ? Like all new comers, I was as yet popular with the farmers; I had two or three moderately good horses, and one very clever pony. "Bill," the boy who did all the work of the stable, was quick and handy, and rode well he might whip-in to me; I would hunt the hounds and blow the horn in my proper person. And already, in my mind's eye, the appointments of the Wild-wood hunt, or Mr. Nogo's harriers, took their honoured place at the bottom of the hunting column in "Bell's Life." I hinted my intention to the Squire; and unlike most masters of fox-hounds, he largely encouraged the idea, and liberally presented me with a most unsightly draft from his own kennel. Far and near, the country was scoured for anything in the shape of a hound that was attainable for love or money; and blue-mottled beagles, lap-eared harriers, with now and then a great rough-coated southern "bellower," made their successive appearances in the make-shift kennel at Wild-wood farm. A green coat was built by the tailor at Weatherley, a couple of useful fortypound nags purchased from the neighbouring farmers, a horn which I could not blow ordered from London, and in a space of time so short that it astonished even my impatient self, I found the day had arrived on which I was to take the field for the first time in my new capacity of master and huntsman. Much do I fear that the once appreciated sport so much lauded in the ancient ditty which affirms "that nothing can compare with the hunting of the hare" is now falling if not into disuse, at least into a contempt which it does not deserve. In the present days of rapidity both in thought and movement, any amusement which does not partake of the boiling excitement so necessary to our modern youth, is at once condemned as "slow," an adjective that seems to comprise everything that is most despicable in the opinion of those who use it. To get upon a high-couraged, well-bred, and perfectly broken hunter; to ride him for twenty minutes at the rate of twenty miles an hour after a pack of hounds that during the last half of that time have over-run the scent; to jump the stile that Rasper fell over, and face the brook that Brag refused; to take gates in his stride and doubles in his swingsuch seem to be the ideas connected with hunting, in the mind of one of our rising generation of sportsmen. Hear him describe a run after dinner, that genial period when the true sentiments of the man rise to the surface as brightly as the genuine Chateau Margeaux bubbles to the goblet's brim; and is not this very much the fashion in which he relates a day's sport, wherein the hounds seem to be the very last subject under consideration? 66 Directly I heard the foot-people holloa him away from the opposite side, I went down and jumped that 'bottom' where Smasher got his horse cast last season, and by that means got a capital start away from the people, and a-head of the leading hounds. We had some queer fences I can tell you; but luckily for me I was riding old Flash-in-the-pan, and at the pace we were going' he thought nothing of them. Bumptious was a little a-head of me, but his horse refused the brook; and as I jumped it in my stride, I overhauled him.” Here you put in a question as to what sort of head the hounds carried, what terms they were on with their fox, the assistance, if any, which they received from their huntsman, and for a moment you rate the fast one back to the line, but it is only for a moment. "Oh, the hounds?" he replies, as if he should not otherwise have mentioned them, "they ran like fury; it was all grass, and I believe up wind. I know the pace was so good I was blown when we got to the double-post and rails, but I broke the further one, and got over without a fall." And filling a large glass of claret he gets back to his own deeds of daring and the incomparable prowess of Flash-in-the-pan. But exciting as all this is, and good fun as unquestionably it must be, we can scarcely call these steeple-chases after hounds by the name of hunting, or the vain-glorious promoters thereof by the title of sportsmen. Do they ever consider that if no one took more pains than themselves to master the arcana of that pursuit, to which, after all, they devote a large portion of their time; if master, huntsman, whips, hounds, &c., were "all for a gallop" and nothing else; if the head of the establishment were not cautious, and his myrmidons what our lively friend terms "slow," what would become of that reliance on each other, that equality in pace, and union in quickness, which enables a pack of hounds to show him such a breather as "winds up" his favourite hunter, thorough-bred one though he be, in less than a quarter of an hour? This brilliant display like some gorgeous pantomime has been prepared and "got up" with a degree of pains and trouble which only those who are "behind the can appreciate or calculate and many an endless woodland, many a cold hunting "journey" can bear witness to the perseverance and discipline which eventually attain such popular results as twentyfive minutes without a check over the grass, six miles from point to point, and pulled him down in the middle of a sixty-acre field, a quarter of a mile from the main earths at Cold Harbour, which were open." Let us then not turn up our noses when the hounds put down theirs, let us not despise slow-hunting, and, above all, the slow-hunting which is so characteristic of a pack of harriers. I have heard it said by men who have distinguished themselves in both pursuits, that the science and ingenuity which are required to kill "a good hare" is even greater than that which is necessary to give an account of a bad fox," and there is many a weather-beaten old dodger, in low-crowned hat and mahogany tops, mounted on some venerable" bo-kicker" with a snaffle bridle, who brings a degree of thoughtfulness and quick apprehension to bear on his long-eared, blue-mottled favourites, that would do honour to the fastest huntsman that ever rode over the most flying country of the much admired "shires." scenes 66 Well, notwithstanding Mrs. Nogo's contempt for the whole performance, I got my hounds together, learned their names, drafted, fed, and encouraged them till they knew me as intimately and confided in me as entirely as the most sagacious retriever in Norfolk knows and confides in the tyrant in velveteen, whose heel he has followed since his puppyhood, and from whom no amount of seduction can tempt the faithful and much enduring animal. It really was a pleasure on a fine scenting morning to ride one of my quiet steady-going horses to the kennel door and witness the rush of my favourites as they came pouring out to meet me, jumping over each other's backs in their eagerness to share their master's approbation, and ever and anon throwing their deep mellow tongues, while they shook back their long pendant ears as if to tell me how ready and willing they were for our mutual labour and amusement. It is needless to describe the difficulties I had to encounter, or the ignorance I was obliged to conceal, in my first attempts at hunting the wiliest animal of the chase; for in shrewd cunning and baffling subterfuge, 1 conceive a hare to be infinitely more deceptive than a fox. In time my hounds became steady and I began to learn, and ere long a good seenting day and some opportune assistance from a farmer enabled me to decide upon the great superiority conceded at the dinner-table to a hare that has been hunted to death, over her sister peppered with No. 6 and afterwards mangled by a retriever at a battue. But satisfactory as was my success on this never-to-be-forgotten occasion, I had no one with whom to discuss my perplexities or to enjoy my triumphs. Mrs. Nogo took, as she said now, "little interest in field-sports," the few farmers over whose land I rode were not people I could ask to dinner, and the Squire was so occupied with county business and the management of his own fox-hounds, that he had seldom leisure to pay me a visit, or to look at my harriers. Joe Bagshot, who was a priceless companion in the field or at the dinner-table, had sold the old brown horse, and was becoming, since his marriage, an altered man, whilst the country gentlemen and Squirearchy lived mostly so wide of Wildwood, as to make it impossible to keep up anything like constant intercourse. In this dearth of society it occurred to me that I should be doing myself a favour, as well as conferring a kindness upon my ci-decant medical adviser, by inviting little Dr. Dott, that enthusiast in sporting and surgery, that Nimrod of the Pharmacopœia, to come down and stay with me a week or ten days, and enjoy in practice those amusements on which in theory he so loved to expatiate. My horses were easy and temperate even if they should be too much for the little doctor, a child might ride the pony. Yes, I would ask him down, mount him, take him over to the kennels at Topthorne, and send him home with anecdotes of the wild sports of the west, that should last him his life-time, and make his wife and children stare with astonishment to hear the heroic deeds of the head of the family. Leave was obtained from Mrs. Nogo, though not without some slight demur, until it occurred to her that to have a "medical man in the house" would be such a comfort in her state of health; a note was despatched to London containing a pressing invitation, and full particulars as to the route by which my guest was to reach the farm. Ilis reply to my letter, forwarded by return of post, so eagerly accepted my offer, that I really looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the arrival of my Esculapius, nor from my previous knowledge of the limited extent of his practice did my conscience smite me as to the harm his absence from London might inflict upon his interests. I sent a dog-cart to meet him at the station; for even in that remote district there was a railway, and consequently a station; and as Mrs. Nogo and myself sat over the drawing-room fire, and deferred ordering tea until the arrival of our guest, we amused ourselves with speculating on his surprise and delight at a mode of life so entirely differing from his usual habits, whilst we listened, not I am afraid without a slight degree of self-satisfaction, to the wintry wind that howled round the house, and drove the pattering rain against the windows, whilst we charitably hoped that "the waters might not be out" at the ford through which our expected guest must pass ere he could arrive at Wild-wood farm. LETTERS FROM MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. MY DEAR NEPHEW,— If you wish to "follow the fox" to any effect in the morning, do not "follow strong drink" in the evening. Your recreation ought to be a guarantee for your moderation. Leave the "cardinals" and the "bishops," and their spiritual peers, and stick to the "commons." Give the lie to the unjust suspicions of old women in black breeches and white neckcloths, who imagine foxhunting and drunkenness to be synonymous terms in the English universities. Do what you can, at all events, to disabuse their minds of so ridiculous a prejudice. The morning frosts and drooping flowers will soon warn us of our approaching season: of course you are looking forward to it with that zealous hope and anticipation which is the peculiar charm of youth, and retributive requital for your greenness. Realities in this world fall far short of early promise; and if you could follow the example of the "pius Æneas," and track his footsteps to that Via, Tartarei que fert Acherontis ad undas," you might learn this fact from no less a personage than Cardinal Wolsey. Shakspeare, who was at least a moderate judge of human nature, makes him discover it before his death : "This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth I have no doubt Shakspeare would feel exceedingly grateful to all the old sinners and middle-aged roués (they never grow old, with their brown wigs and padded coats) who would bear testimony to his just description of blighted anticipations. If you make up your mind that Lady Blunderbore's ball, or Mrs. Gardener Blossomnose's dejeuner à la fourchette is to be the most delightful thing of the season; if you have spent three-quarters of an hour in giving the last finishing twist to an unruly whisker, I would bet any money that dear Louisa's mamma enters the ball-room on the grounds, minus Louisa, who has sprained her ancle only the day before. Or if partridges are more in your line, just go to bed on the night of the 31st of August, with a moral certainty for your nightcap of killing six brace before breakfast, and the odds are at least 3 to 1 against |