floundering in them, first and last, and yet we never come this way without some one trying them. Forrard! forrard!" continued he, cheering on his hounds, notwithstanding they were beating him as it was. "Forrarding" with huntsmen, and "hissing" with grooms, are things they get so into the way of, that many of them can't help themselves.

If extreme pace lasts, a run can't last. That is a truism worth remembering by pullers-up and people fancying themselves about to be beat by the pace. Up the Grassmere Water Meadows the pace certainly was extremely good-so good that the hounds ran nearly mute; but as they neared the neck where the meadows run up into a ravine, some few found time and wind to throw their tongues; and most welcome were the notes, borne back on the soft light breeze. A momentary check at the top let in the successful followers on either side of the valley, while a mixed tail of blacks and reds dotted the line of country over which they had come. The lathered horses now stood panting and blowing, and shaking their tails, after their exertions, whilst the red-faced, perspiring sportsmen durst not dismount to ease them. "Bless us, what a pace!" "Did you see Muffinmouth in the bog?" Who was t'other chap?" "Where's my groom ?" "You've lost a shoe." "Have I, by Jove? It's all dickey with me, then!" were the exclamations that burst forth,

while Ben bustled away to the well-accustomed point, to get the pack on with their game.

Up the steep dean-side then they scrambled, and after squeezing through a stiff and very scratchmy-face fence, they found themselves in a large fallow, with the hounds lob, lob, lobbing across, now mute, now dropping a note, but pointing for the forest, now a conspicuous object in the rising foreground.

Old Ben began kicking the chestnut into a canter to get the hounds across the fallow as quickly as possible, well knowing the importance of killing the fox in the open. Not that he ever expresses a doubt of catching him in cover, but he prefers the publicity of the plain. He is all for fair play, especially when there's a burning scent.

The rivalry of riding was now about over, all being satisfied that if their horses got into the deep rides of the forest, they would want all the " go they could save for them, and trotting, and holding, and casing, and furrow-seeking, and headlandriding, became the order of the day.

Mr. Swillbut, the brewer's, great gaunt brown horse Molasses, who had given indications of a stiff neck down below, had been so fairly pumped out by clambering up the rough brushwoody dean, that he lay down on the fallow just outside the stiff fence, and so awkwardly did he repose himself, that the few horses behind had to leap over him,

or force a fresh breach through the lofty, newly switched, almost impenetrable fence.

Stil the desire to save their horses was outweighed by anxiety to kill the fox in the open, and nobody regretted to hear the light musical notes of the bitches again swelling to cry as they got upon a large, rushy, old pasture, causing the field to get their horses by the head, and urge them again into a canter.

The thing had now got so select that there would be honour and glory enough for them all, consequently, those who "never open gates," and never “pull down fences," now began to do both, and those who always open and pull down, now did so the more.

So what with one, and what with another, they about dispensed with leaping altogether. It was, "I'll get off if you'll hold my horse! that's a good fellow; I'll do it next time," or "You'd better get off and lift it," as Tom Bowles was fumbling at a chained gate.

This, however, is all under the rose, the stiffest fencing and the hardest riding being always, by courtesy, supposed to come last.

So they went on from field to field rejoicing.

*

After skirting Birkshaw coppice, and taking a look at Cranfield farm buildings, Reynard did not find such accommodation as induced him to desert his original point for the forest; but a colley dog

chasing him, pumped out the little balance of wind he had left; to recruit which he shortly after lay up in a hedge-row, from whence, after the usual flash forward and feathering flourish of the pack, he was soon elevated in the arms of Old Ben before the admiring eyes of "glorious seven," each trying who could WHO-HOOP loudest.

The following may be taken as a sample of the usual varied accounts that attend a good run :

Real distance, eight miles.

Real time, forty-five minutes.

Checks, one.

Heavies up, four.

Lights, three.

Telling distance, fourteen.

Telling time, one hour.

Checks, none.

The result of our friend Tom's ride was, that he

repriced the young 'un at 1507.

CHAPTER V.

LORD LIONEL LAZYTONGS.

DELIGHTED with his day with Mr. Neville, pleased with the performance of the five-year old, in love with all the world, particularly with his sweet charmer Lydia Clifton, our friend gave his horse to Sleekpow, with an intimation that he should want Rough Robin the next afternoon, being fully determined to ride over to Snailswell, and finish the matter off-hand, whether he gave up hunting or

not.

"It's time I was married," said he, stamping the conglomerated mud off his soaked boots, and casting an eye downwards on the stained and spattered cords.

"It doesn't follow," continued he, as he opened the back door, and hurried into the house, "that I need give up hunting the first year at all events, or perhaps not even the second, or yet the third;" and if anything was wanting to clench his determination about matrimony, it would have been the fact of his stumbling over one of those abominable tape-women's baskets that had been left in the passage, while the owner carried on the usual promiscuous barter with the females-ribbons for