126 The Chase 



Everyone seemed to consider it a desperate job. 

 They were all puzzled ; at last they heard a 

 desperate, terrible halloaing about a quarter of a 

 mile to the south, and immediately after was 

 espied a group of horsemen galloping along the 

 road at full speed, in the midst of which was 

 Jorrocks ; his green coat wide open, with the tails 

 flying a long way behind that of his horse, his right 

 leg was thrust out, down the side of which he kept 

 applying his ponderous hunting-whip, making a 

 most terrible clatter. As they approached, he 

 singled himself out from the group and was the 

 first to reach the field. He immediately burst out 

 into one of his usual energetic hunting strains. 

 "Oh, Jonathan Griffin!" said he, "here's a 

 lamentable occurrence — a terrible disaster ! Oh 

 dear, we shall never get to Tunbridge — that un- 

 fortunate deer has escaped us, and we shall never 

 see nothing more of him — rely upon it, he's killed 

 before this ! " " Why, how's that ? " inquired 

 Griffin, evidently in a terrible perturbation. " Why," 

 said Jorrocks, slapping his whip down his leg again, 

 " there's a little girl tells me that as she was getting 

 water at the well just at the end of the wood, 

 where we lost him, she saw what she took to be 

 a donkey jump into a return post-chaise from the 

 Bell at Seven Oaks, that was passing along the 

 road with the door swinging wide open ! and you 

 may rely upon it, it was the deer. The landlord 

 of the Bell will have cut his throat before this, for, 

 as you know, he vowed vengeance against us last 

 year, because his wife's pony-chaise was upset, and 

 he swore we did it." " Oh, but that's a bad job," 

 said the huntsman, " what shall we do ? Here, 

 Tom," calling to the whipper-in, "jump on to 

 the Hastings coach (which just came up) and try 



