"And bring two or three dozen oysters, and some pale ale," exclaimed Sir Charles, as the servant was going, after receiving the above orders; adding to the doctor, "Oysters are wholesome enough, at all events, I hope?"

"Nothing more so, Sir Chorles," replied the man of medicine.

"A beaker of burgundy would be right after the paté, wouldn't it?" asked he in continuation.

"It would give tone to the stomach, Sir Chorles, especially if you have rather overdone yourself with exercise."

"Well, then, my good fellow," interrupted the patient, "will you have the kindness to go into the cellar for it yourself, and see and wrap it properly up in flannel, so that it mayn't get chilled by the ?"

way

With such a "whet" the reader will conjecture what the dinner was like; nor will it, perhaps, be necessary to point out why Sir Charles is not as healthy as he was with his hundred a year, to prevent rich people parting with their money for fear of getting like him. Should there be any alarmists, however, Mr. Scott says he can take a few sackfuls, which may either be sent to Hawbuck Grange, or left with the publishers of this work. The accommodating reader will now have the kindness to suppose our friend Tom Scott returned to the former place.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DOUBTFUL DAY.

DOUBTFUL days-that is to say, days on which one does not know whether to go to hounds or stay at home-are great bores. To be sure, a native has no great business to be bothered by them, seeing that he has no need to "turn out" on other than undoubted days, and can chop over to his other occupation should a day seem unpropitious; but in a sport-stinting season, even natives are very apt to try and get a day that, in a favourable winter, would be rejected. Gentlemen who leave their homes for the purpose of hunting are fairly excusable for going sliding and slipping to a meet. Not but that even they had better stay at their lodgings and read the "Annual Register," or whatever work of light reading they have brought with them.

Speaking of the season, 1846-7, our friend Scott, after prefacing his observations by declaring that he "doesn't wish to say any thing unhandsome of the weather, or of anybody," denounces it as "the most tricky, capricious, unhandsome season he ever remembers." "It is not the frost and snow that I complain of," says he, "though we had enough of

them in all conscience, but it was the dirty, deceitful, delusive sort of changing that kept raising men's hopes, apparently for no other purpose than dashing them to spinage.'"

Of course he spoke of the weather in Mr. Neville's country, but we believe it was pretty much the same all over. After an inordinate quantity of frost and snow, from the end of November to the beginning of January, there was a slight cessation, and the wide-awake ones actually got a few days' hunting in some countries. At the end of the first week, however, just as all the packs were again blooming into advertisement, back came the frost, harder, if possible, than ever, accompanied by a fresh fall of snow; and again, about the last week of the month, they both disappeared, and hunting was resumed with all the advantages of first-rate scent, to be again stopped on the 31st, by the return of frost and snow. Then look at that little snuffling, shabby month of February, one that in ordinary seasons we reckon as the second best hunting one of the year. It came in, of course, with a white coat and an icicled nose, when all of a sudden, on the night of the 4th, it turned to a thaw, the west wind got up and cleared the country of snow in an incredible short space of time, when lo! as all the snow-broth yet floated on the fields, back came the frost on the 7th, caking it on the top, to the damage, if not the destruction of the wheat crops, and then a fall of snow succeeded to

keep all snug. Now that we call very unhandsome unworthy of the great and enlightened eighteen hundred and forty-seven; it's as bad as kicking a man when he's down.

Not being fond of doubtful days, Tom Scott missed a run or two during the first interregnum, and paid dearly for it by the persecution of Muff & Co., who happened to be out. Indeed, he could hardly get their township books through at the next meeting of the board of guardians, from first Muff, and then Tinhead, and then Tinhead, and then Muff, bursting into exclamations about it. "Thomas Felix Badman, relieved in kind — two kicks and a basin of barley water," read the clerk.

"Major! do you recollect that splendid cast the hounds made of themselves at the four cross roads? Just as we came to Briarly Dell, where the fox had met the sheep in the face, and made them 'right about wheel?"" inquired Muff (Tarquinius), who was in the chair, of his docile friend Tinhead, who stood warming himself before the fire.

"Ellen Draggletail told she must behave herself better, or she'll get no more ginger," continued the clerk.

"Ah, but did you see them at Heathhanger Bridge?" asked the major: "I don't think I ever saw hounds behave better."

"January 3.- Mark Scrimagour received into the house at four o'clock without any hat, and a

pair of shocking bad breeches-lent him a cap and a pair of union trousers," read the clerk.

"The fox had run the parapet," observed Tinhead, "and when the hounds came up, of course they-

January 4.-Mark Scrimagour refused to scour the candlesticks, because he had not had enough sugar in his milk at breakfast."

"Hang his sugar," snapped Tinhead.

"By the way, Mr. Scott, what got you? inquired the all-important Tarquinius Muff, throwing open his blue paletot, and displaying an acre of chest, bespangled with studs and encircled with chains. "I thought you were one of the 'neversay-die' sort," continued he-" a regular sacré matin man for the chasse, as the French say."

The hounds had had good sport, an hour and twenty minutes one day, and a very sharp twenty minutes the second; and if Tom had had an hour and twenty minutes to compose it in, he'd have said something to Muff as sharp as the last run; as it was, he parried his importunities by pretending to be desperately busy with the accounts, inwardly resolving not to give him a chance of crowing over him another time.

The foregoing took place on a Wednesday, and an opportunity was afforded on the Friday. Mr. Neville always advertises his hounds, in doubtful times, putting "weather permitting" at the top of the advertisement. This is a good plan, for though