in April. This year we had snow in the second week, making the fourth winter of the season, and there was frost enough to stop hounds in many parts about the middle of the month. In the third week the fallows were flying, and the ground was too dry for anything but farming towards the end. April, however, rectified that, for the smiling month, entered with another fall of snow, the fifth winter of the season, which continued to fall at night and clear off during the day for the first three or four days. So we think we may say the season was a very bad one.

And now having said our utilitarian say, we will conclude this chapter, and finish our volume with a description of Tom Scott's visit to the man who provoked it.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MORNING MEET.

OUR friend Tom had put his red coat to bed, that is to say, in the topmost drawer of the wardrobe, and had commenced stripping his horses, when he got the following note from his friend, Sylvanus Bluff:

"DEAR SCOTT,

"CAVIL HOUSE.

"I'm worried alive with Mr. Neville's foxes, and heartily wish you'd come over and kill me some of them, for I really think they won't leave me a lamb, or a goose, or a head of game about the place. I have written to Mr. Neville and Old Ben till I'm tired, and it's perfectly ridiculous expecting me to preserve foxes, which I do most sedulously, when they never come near to hunt them. I have therefore got the Scratchley dogs coming over on Thursday, and we are going to turn out by daybreak to see what we can do with a drag. I wish you would come over and assist, as you know more about these things than I do. Dinner at six.

"Yours sincerely,

"S. BLUFF."

Bluff like a great many of us-is a capital fellow in his way-that is to say, if he has his own way-but he doesn't like to be thwarted; least of all to have any of his live stock injured or destroyed. Still he preserves foxes; indeed he calls himself a sportsman-a sportsman who is content with two hunts a year, one in the spring, the other in the autumn. When among non-hunting men, he talks big about hunting, and his doings with the hounds; but when among members of the hunt, he always parades his patriotism in preserving what are a "downright nuisance to him." Like a good many other men, he never makes allowances for the seasons, and if he has not the hounds at his house when he wants them he considers himself slighted. Mr. Neville not having got to him, had caused him to worry and fidget himself into a belief that he was in danger of being eaten up by foxes; and, partly as an act of self-preservation, and partly, perhaps, by way of what he calls "keeping Mr. Neville in order," he had invited Sam Jubberknowl of Badstock to bring over the Scratchley dogs. Jubberknowl is a loose fish of a brewing, inn-keeping saddler at Badstock, who, what they cail, "heads the Scratchley dogs;" that is to say, is answerable to the tax-gatherer for the ten couple which they return as seven. It is generally observed that half the Scratchley dogs disappear about taxing time.

When we see a pack of hounds advertised to

meet at half-past eight or nine o'clock in the morning, or hear them spoken of in the country as "dogs," one has a pretty good idea what to expect ; and, even if Scott had not known Jubberknowl and his establishment, he would have had little difficulty in picturing the concern. As it was, our friend Tom had often been puzzled to make out whether Jubberknowl is a sportsman, or merely one who busies himself about the "dogs" for the purpose of furthering his other callings of saddler, publican, and sinner. The few times Tom had seen him out with Mr. Neville, he observed that he always came very late, and went away very carly, and never passed a public-house without stopping to refresh himself. The latter, however, might be on the reciprocity principle.

It so happened that Scott was going over on the afternoon of the day on which he got Mr. Bluff's letter to have a field day on the flags with the entry, and he took an early opportunity of telling Mr. Neville about it, expecting nothing but that he would give Bluff, and Jubberknowl, and the Scratchley dogs, a good blessing for their intended unceremonious intrusion.

"I'm very glad you've mentioned it," observed Mr. Neville," for it reminds me that I've had two letters from Mr. Bluff about the damage the foxes are doing him, which I have quite forgotten to anwer, and Ben has had no end of complaints from

X

Steeltrap his keeper.

What can I do?

You

know," added he, with a shrug of the shoulders, "I can't make the season. I should only have been too glad to have gone over and hunted his foxes for him; but we couldn't go in the snowwe couldn't go in the frost-we couldn't go in the wind-and it was no use going when the country got as dry and as hard as these flags," continued he, stamping upon them as he spoke.

"But what do you say about the Scratchley dogs?" asked Tom, expecting to get Mr. Neville's bristles up at the very idea of any one invading his country.

"Why, as to that," replied our master, shakin his head and looking very solemn, "I suppose Mr. Bluff must just do as he thinks right. It's true he always preserves foxes for us, and he has some good covers in the centre of our country, so that it wouldn't be prudent to quarrel with him. One can't tell a non-hunting man like him that he shall not do what he likes with his own, and if he does not kill a vixen, he mayn't do us any great harm."

"Perhaps," added he, after a pause, "the best thing you could do would be to go over and see what they do do, and if you should have such a misfortune as to kill a vixen, which is almost the only chance Bluff has of getting blood this dry weather, you could secure the cubs at all events. We are short on the Cannonbridge side of the