to stand the efforts of those two-and-twenty couple of slapping hounds in that small hill, than to fly the country, and take the chance of sheltering hedge-rows, friendly woods, and other contingencies. Yet we call the fox a coward for not running away. The doctrine of fox courage is not clearly defined. The doctrine of cold is, though;" continued he, sneezing and shrugging up his shoulders as the keen wind took him across the back.

"Thank God! there's old Ben putting his horn to his mouth at last," exclaimed he, and the clear shrill noise sounded through the country. The willing hounds gladly left the unkindly gorse, and came straggling up to Ben's horse's heels.

"If it wasn't that I have broken into the day, and shouldn't be able to settle to any thing after, I'd go home," said Scott to himself; "for there's no sure find within four miles of this, and the day is getting colder, and the wind higher." Moreover the day, without being absolutely stormy, was just boisterous enough to prevent hounds hearing, and consequently bad enough to prevent hunting.

The choice now lay between Hunter's Oak Spinney and Kenley Gorse-the one being in Scott's way home, the other out of it. Of course they chose the one out of it, and after four miles, trot, trot, bump, bump, at that most uncomfortable postboy pace that hounds jog from cover to cover, they arrived at the gorse just in time to see two shooters emerge from it.

We need hardly say they drew it blank; indeed, after so much gorse work, we were only surprised that Ben drew it at all; but huntsmen must make out a day somehow when master is absent, and that with as little unnecessary disturbance of country as possible.

Farmer Buckwheat then came up, and assured Ben that he had seen a fox an hour before rolling on his neighbour Rush's fallow,-a piece of intelligence that Ben eagerly availed himself of, and drew the hounds across and across as though he really expected to find him.

foxes away

That performance being over, and eleven redcoats remaining, nine of whom lived to the north, Ben announced his intention of drawing Parkham Bush Dean, a most impracticable cover, to the south-impracticable at least in as far as getting is concerned-an intimation that acted like lightning upon the field, causing the red-coats to stop short, those who had comforters in their pockets to tie up their mouths, those who had warm gloves to produce them from their horses' girths, and all to make preparations for cutting home, declaring that they had had enough, and that it was the most beastly day they had ever been out in.

Cold, dejected, cheerless, dispirited, and chilled, our friend sought his solitary home, and having got rid of an hour in the stable, at last found himself in the old red morocco chair with cane sides, that has

grown old, and tattered, and shabby in his service. There, as he dozed over the fire, with the melancholy light of a pair of mutton fats, he reviewed the flight of life, and glanced at the prospect of the future.

"Hunting," said he, "has been the balm and charm of my youth-it has solaced the seclusion of my summers, and delighted the retirement of my winters; but, hang it, if this November is to be taken as a sample of what's to come, it's precious little use persevering in the line."

Thereupon he gave a tremendous sneeze.

"What a fool I was to go out on such a day!" continued he, burying his face in a capacious bandana, "far more likely to increase a cold than to cure one." A-whitza-whitz-a-whitz" regularly in for it, and nobody to nurse one. Poor Lydia Clifton? If it hadn't been for this hunting I'd have married you long since." A-whitz a-whitz-a-whitz. "James!" hallooed he to the boy he now heard fistling in the passage, "take a foot-bath full of hot water up stairs directly boiling! d'ye hear? I really think I'll give up hunting and marry her still," added Tom, rising from the morocco chair, "for it's no use keeping horses for such work as this." So saying, he stumped up stairs, to parboil his feet and think over the pro's and con's of matrimony.

CHAP. IV.

A CHEERER.

"A chosen few alone the sport enjoy!"

THE next day was so deuced overcast and bad that our friend didn't venture further than the stable, or we really believe he would have ridden over to Snailswell, and ended a nine years' courtship with an offer. As it was he lay at earth, watching the rows of drops stringing themselves together like illumination lamps on the window frames, the raw drizzling rain gliding down the panes, and the heavy spongy clouds rolling themselves like bed hangings round the opposite hills. A more ungenial day, perhaps, was never seen. Even in the country it was scarcely light, and what those poor benighted folks who live in towns must have suffered "baffles the comprehension." The glass had run itself down to nothing, and every body said they were in for "weather." The wind rose towards night, and dashed the now swelling drops against the casement with redoubled fury.

Scott fully made up his mind, as he turned into bed, to be done with hunting, and to settle quietly down to matrimony. "It's no use persevering in a sport when one hasn't weather to enjoy it in,"

argued he, considering what he should do with his horses. "She's a nice little creature," continued he, pulling the bed clothes up to his snuffling nose, "and although she hasn't much money, yet she's so careful that her management would be quite as good as a fortune." So saying, he dozed away to sleep, and dreamt of bells ringing, ribbons flaunting, beer flowing, fiddles scraping, girls dancing, farmers feasting, "three times three and one cheer more!

How different everything looked the next morning. The dreary, foggy, water-charged clouds had cleared away, and been succeeded by bright, smiling, sunshiny weather.

The landscape was just like a newly cleaned picture. What yesterday was all blotch, mystery, and confusion, to-day stood forth most luminously distinct. Nay, beauties appeared, that a stranger would have said had been added- Oakhope spire, the herd's white cottage on the Compton Hills, and the sky line breaking fringe of beech, crowning the summit of Blackdown Moor. All nature seemed to rejoice in the change. The cattle grazed freely in the fields instead of sheltering behind trees and hedge-rows, the labourers doffed their jackets to their work, children played bareheaded about the cottages, and the horses in the stable had acquired a silky gloss on their late dull unkindly

coats.

The hounds met at Hollyburn Green, twelve miles by the road, nine by the "crow." Our friend