3GO On the Pleasures of Body-Snatching. [APRIL, 



was more extraordinary, the young lady received his addresses. Her 

 father, as may be supposed, was rather restive on the occasion ; but as 

 even fox-hunters will be unwell sometimes, and as there was no other 

 professsonal man in the neighbourhood, he was obliged to have S 



occasionally about the house. S , unfortunately, was no horseman ; 



in fact, he had never been on horseback in his life : he was as ignorant of 

 horses as an ass ; and the very idea of sitting astride on so formidable an 

 animal, for the purpose of locomotion, or any other purpose whatever, made 

 him sweat for fear. It was on this peculiarity that the squire formed a 

 plan to mortify the young Cockney, and make him ridiculous in the eyes 

 even of his daughter. One day that half the gentlemen of the county 



were assembled at his house, 8 arrived, panting and breathless, in 



obedience to a message by express from the squire, requesting his imme- 

 diate attendance. At the sight of so many horses and servants about the 

 house, apparently in hunting train, visions of broken legs and collar-bones 

 danced gaily through the surgeon's imagination ; and he sprung up the 

 steps, and into the dining-room where the company were assembled, with 

 even more than his usual agility. " My dear Sir," said the squire, running 

 to meet him, and seizing on his hand, which he shook with all the vehe- 

 mence of a fox-hunter, " you are the kindest fellow in the world we shall 

 never forget it. But the fact is, we have this moment kicked up a steeple- 

 chase our horses are saddled, and we are just ready to mount ; the ground 

 is not a dozen miles from this : and so, as it would be mere madness to 

 start without at least one professional gentleman, where there is a prospect 

 of as desperate leaps as ever were seen in the county, I took the liberty 

 of sending for you. Come, come!" continued he, perceiving the blank 

 look of the surgeon ; " don't stick upon trifles with a friend. 1 see you 

 have not brought your horse with you ; but you shall have the best of my 

 poor stud." And immediately a dozen other gentlemen of the turf, who 

 were in the secret, gathered round ; and seizing on the victim's arms, in the 

 midst of his scrapes, and acknowledgments, and excuses from the get-off 

 equivocal to the lie direct hurried him through the hall and down the 

 steps. A horse, ready accoutred, and held by a groom in rich livery, stood 

 before them ; and the squire, with many compliments and caresses, besought 

 him to mount without more loss of time. The animal stood with his head, 

 not his side, towards his intended rider or even the inexperienced eye of 

 the Cockney must have detected the trick. He was a superannuated 

 hunter, at least a foot higher than his grandson's breed ; his bones, 

 although every care had been paid to his honourable old age, seemed to be 

 starting through his skin ; and even if the recollected spirit of his youth, 

 and the dying instincts of nature could be lighted up for a moment as 

 they might have been, by the sound of the huntsman's horn into some- 

 thing perilous even to an experienced rider, there was nothing about him 



capable of making the danger respectable to a looker-on. Poor S , 



disguise it as he might, trembled from head to foot, as he suffered himself 

 to be led on towards his fate; but, just as he arrived within parleying- 

 distance, the animal, as if weaned by the delay that had taken place, 

 opened his huge mouth into a yawn, so absolutely unhorsical and dis- 

 playing a broken range of teeth, so terrible even in their ruin that the sur- 

 geon, spite of his habitual self-possession, started back in dismay. But, 

 instantaneously recovering himself, as the sudden laugh of the squire and 

 his friends burst upon his ear, he resumed his ground, and said, with a low 

 bow to the still gaping quadruped, " I beg your pardon I travel outside." 



