most skilfully, blobbing right over head in the

middle of it!

We are ashamed to say the ladies laughed, as their dripping friend came spluttering ashore.

With that sorry exploit we will conclude Tom Scott's first day of a bad season.

CHAPTER II.

THE GOOSE AND DUMPLING HUNT.

"Harriers, to be good, like all other hounds, must be kept to their own game; if you run fox with them, you spoil them; hounds cannot be perfect unless used to one scent and one style of hunting. Harriers run fox in so different a style from hare, that it is of great disservice to them when they return to hare again; it makes them wild, and teaches them to skirt. The high scent which a fox leaves, the straightness of his running, the eagerness of the pursuit, and the noise that generally accompanies it, all contribute to spoil harriers." -BECKFORD.

MR. SCOTT was debating whether to go to Holbrook Fair, or take his dogs and gun and stroll up to the ten-acre piece they were draining, when the short harsh bark of Snap at the door, and the clink of the German catch of the side gate, announced somebody coming.

It was Joe Stumps, Mr. Trumper of Jolly-rise's man, whose trot and bustling air, with the portentous display of a ponderous hunting-whip, bespoke no common errand.

Tom went to the porch to meet him

"Meazster's compliments and hooundes be out, said Joe, with which laconic speech he was turning his horse's head to go away without deigning to say where "hooundes" were.

"Where are they, Joe?" hallooed Scott.

"Stockenchurch Hill, to be sure!" replied Joe, as if it was not possible for them to be anywhere else. The man of few words then trotted away, leaving Tom in contemplation of his enormous disk and the hind quarters of his short-legged, well-actioned bay dray-horse-looking nag, whose sides were covered with the flowing laps of Joe's green frock coat.

Mr. Trumper took Stumps on account of his silent qualities (a great recommendation for harriers), a silence nearly reduced to muteness, by Joe's leaving out as many words in the few sentences he does utter as he possibly can, according to the approved fashion of his native wolds. In other respects he is very like the hare-hunter-heavy, patient, 'cute, and cunning, a good rider for a heavy man, careful of his horse and chary of damage. He is perfectly satisfied that there is not a more important personage under the sun than his master, and that he himself is the next greatest man going.

Mr. Scott, availing himself of Mr. Trumper's politeness, enables us to introduce the hunt to our readers.

There is one advantage of harriers -you always know where to find them, and can cut in for a game at romps, just as a dowager does for a hand at whist.

Sleekpow the groom had anticipated Scott's movements; for when he went to the stable, he found the "Wilkinson and Kid" astride of the hay crib, and the well-polished bridle hanging on the hook between the stalls.

"Just put the saddle on old Barbara," said Tom, in the negligée sort of way that may mean anything-anything, at least, except fox-hunting.

"Hare-hunting certainly ought not to be made a business of. It should just be taken when one's in. the humour." Nevertheless, we don't subscribe to Beckford's doctrine-that a ride to the sixth milestone and back would be as good as hare-hunting; for we think, taken quietly, that hare-hunting is the next best sport to fox-hunting. But to make hare-hunting enjoyable a man should live in a good country for it-in a country where he can just turn out within a mile or two of home, and not have to trash away to a distant one. The hounds, too, should be harriers, and not dwarf foxhounds, that burst a hare in ten minutes where there is anything like a scent. A vicious desire for speed, and of making one thing serve two purposes, has far to annihilate the old, respectable, slow, and steady "well-hunted good dogs!" -harrier packs of former days. Instead of the "squire," or a few substantial farmers, keeping their ten or twelve couple of harriers, we have a sort of bastard fox-hunt clubs that run amuck at everything, except the game licence.

gone

The two sports-hare-hunting and fox-hunting -do not differ more in their nature than the relative expenses of each differ.

Hare-hunting requires neither state, machinery, nor preparation; nobody expects to see anything

but a lot of merry-looking little animals wriggling and jumping about, attended, perhaps, by a man on foot with the couples, or an elderly servant on an elderly horse; but an establishment, calling itself a fox-hunt, is a very different thing, and raises very different expectations.

There must be a couple of men at the least, with three or four horses that can both gallop and jump. These two men, and these three or four horses, trifling as they appear upon paper, make a considerable item at the end of the year; and if the country is at all hollow, which most countries are fast becoming, from the quantity of draining going on, the expense of "stopping" alone, comes to as much as the whole annual expense of the merry harriers. Then the promoters have recourse to all sorts of screwing and scraping, applying to members of Parliament, and people who don't hunt, and go running open-mouthed at every chance person that comes out, to support the rickety concern, which is generally a disgrace to fox-hunting, and a nuisance to the country they haunt, not hunt.

Fox-hunting should be done handsomely! There is something about the noble animal that forbids our treating him slightingly. He should be hunted like a gentleman. What chance have a lot of trencher-fed, milk-fattened, street-scouring beggars with a good high-couraged, clean-feeding, wellconditioned flyer? None whatever! The further they go the further they are left behind, till the