^ (SootJ 2^un, anU a ^ooti dfint^t). i79 



old windmill at Cattleby — a check which might, 

 however, have been very advantageously longer (as, 

 too, might that yelping shepherd dog have been 

 hung) — for our horses have latterly hung out palpable 

 symptoms of distress, fencing recently in a manner 

 so short and slovenly as to remind us very forcibly 

 that we must not trespass on their highly-taxed 

 courage for much longer. 



The huntsman, on the best of timber jumpers, was 

 down over that paltry stile to my right, as I with 

 difficulty induced my game little black to scramble, 

 when relieved of my weight, out of a deep ditch into 

 which she had subsided, and our now only com- 

 panion had kissed his maternal parent no less than 

 thrice. On another occasion of so doing he, indeed, 

 seemed literally to be suspended in that black bull- 

 finch, but after a momentary pause rider and horse, 

 without an actual dissolution of partnership, scram- 

 bled to the other and better side, and Dick and I were 

 only too glad to avail ourselves of the hole they made, 

 for " leps " had for some time past been things not 

 to be trifled with. No, indeed ! and so had the rider 

 of the raking chestnut discovered but shortly before, 

 when four of us jumped in, and but three out of 

 that rutty lane. 



We had just time to note that the horse who up 

 till then had gone so well will have no more, but 



