strained after his lordship, in hopes of viewing the fox.

The hounds poured out of cover, down went their sterns, and out came the music, as they crossed the line of the drag, and settled like a swarm of bees on the scent.

Away! away! away! went the field, the bold dragoons mixing up with the rest, leaving the prince to look after himself, while gigs, and cars, and phaetons, and landau, and all strained over the green sward as best they could. It was a splendid burst!

The prince's Flemish punch even seemed to catch a little of the infection, and gave two or three squeals and hoists up behind, indicative of what he might do if his highness did not loose his head a little. This the nag accomplished just as the Duke of Tergiversation, who had been nearly capsized by a dog-cart, came alongside, and suggested that they ought to be getting forward if they meant to see the sport.

On then they bumped together in about equal enjoyment of the run, which was dexterously prolonged by sundry doubles, that would have led the knowing ones to think it was a hare if Jemmy Fitznoodle had not had ocular demonstration of the brush.

At last the conical roof of old Absolom's thatched cottage was seen peering from among the laurels. and evergreens in which it is stuck; and when the

great guns arrived, it was announced to the duke, who put it into French for the prince, that the fox was at bay in the garden.

Great were the rejoicings thereat, great the exultations of each party on coming up "piping hot" to the finish. "Glorious run! splendid sport! finest sight that ever was seen."

"Who shall say there are no foxes at Fast-andLoose Castle!" exclaimed his grace, wiping the perspiration from his brow.

"Who, indeed!" echoed Jemmy Fitznoodle, adding, this is the biggest one I ever set eyes on!" "WHO-HOOP!" screeched Lord Harry Harkaway at last, poking his way under the ivy-twined arch of the little garden-gate, with the brush and pads high in hand.

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Who-hoop!" echoed half a hundred outside.

"Give the brush to the prince, my lord!" exclaimed the duke, as the outburst of joy subsided -"give the brush to the prince, my lord: he rode like a hero and deserves it!"

His grace then interpreted the compliment, while the great phlegmatic Dutchman sat on his horse looking as unconcerned as a cow. Mynheer Von Cled got a pad, (rather an equivocal compliment, considering his deficiency in that line,) and the compliments and congratulations being at length exhausted, the duke capped the performance by exclaiming, "My Lord Harry! you'd better come to the castle and have a little refreshment after your fatigue."

Lord Harry thought otherwise, and having paid the last tribute of respect to poor reynard's remains in the garden, he groped his way through the now squeezing and jostling crowd to his horse, which having mounted, the brass music of the horn and bugle drew off their respective cohorts, the hunters passing outside the park, while the soldiers again formed into something like line to conduct the heroes back to the castle.

In ten minutes the lately distracted park had resumed its usual placid grandeur. The grey-headed, green-coated gate-keeper rolled the heavy iron. gates back as the last donkey cart took its departure, closing the fox-hunting scene, let us hope, "for ever and for aye!"

"Well, but where's your blank?" we fancy we hear the reader say. "You've killed a brace of

foxes! how's that? that's no blank!"

Gentle reader, we admit it; it wouldn't be a blank to some, but it was to Lord Harkaway and many of the gentleman who "hark, away" with him. Will Will you, however, take it seriously amiss if you that all this is merely preliminary to the "blank day?" We hope not, for unless you close the book, you have all your medicine to take yet.

we tell

Perhaps, however, unlike Lord Harry Harkaway, the reader may require a little refreshment after such a run, so we will reserve the real blank for another chapter.

THE Duke of Tergiversation's park-wall encroaches so on the township road outside, that the field was lengthened into something like military line until they cleared its precincts. Indeed it was not until they got upon the liberal width and grass-sidings of the Cockington Fort road, that Tom Scott had an opportunity of diving into the melée, and seeing "who was who." Others had been in the same predicament, for Tom had not advanced far into the crowd of horsemen, ere he was hailed by some of the "best fellows under the sun," exclaiming, in the wild outburst of surprise, "Damme, here's Tom Scott!" "What the deuce has brought you here, old boy?" Well, Tom, did you ever ?" "No, I never!" and so on, alluding to the recent Fox and Goose exhi

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bition in the park.

Despite the retirement of the prince, and the carriages, and the cavalry, and the costermongers, there was still an immense field: from a hundred and fifty to two hundred horsemen at least. The country papers of the next week, who devoted three columns and a half each to the details of the pageant, "Grand Sporting Pageant at Fast-andLoose Castle, in honour of his Serene Highness the

Prince of Spankerhausen and the great Dutch merchant Mynheer Von Cled," declared there were a thousand—a thousand, exclusive of the handful of yeomanry, whom they magnified into "two hundred of the flower of the country."

And here we may observe, how much better it is for a respectable paper to have a regular cutalong correspondent, who sticks to the truth, and tells what he sees, calling things by their proper names fools, fools humbugs, humbugs

and so on, instead of one of your word-sprawling gentry, who are perfectly bewildered when they come to handle a hunt, and who only make absurdity more ridiculous.

Who doesn't remember the mess they made when her Majesty went out at Belvoir, and again when glorious Tom Smith* revisited the green haunts of Leicestershire !

But to the adjourned hunt.

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Why didn't you come in to breakfast at the castle, Mr. Scott ?" asked Sir George Stiffenecke, who had got straggled all the way down to the "duke's," and was still prosecuting the chase, notwithstanding his grace's return, in hopes of gaining an appetite for dinner. "Why didn't you come

* Thomas Assheton Smith, Esq., one of the best sportsmen the world ever saw. This scene, we are happy to hear, is in course of redemption by the unrivalled pencil of Mr. Grant, and we hope the public will be favoured with an engraving of it.

T