Tom Tootler, 21 



in the course of a run, and Sir Harry, not knowing 

 what to do for a substitute, at the Huntsman's sugges- 

 tion told Tom to take his damaged whip's place the next 

 day the hounds met, and do his best. Tom was delighted. 

 He was passionately fond of hunting, and, as he had kept his 

 eyes well open and his wits about him all the time he was 

 riding second horse for Sir Harry, he was enabled to 

 make an uncommonly good debut in his new profession. 

 The Huntsman took to him uncommonly, and Lady 

 Hotspur tried to get her husband to keep him on per- 

 manently as second whip, she being much struck by Tom's 

 good-looks, his predecessor being anything but a beauty 

 to look at. However, that arrangement the Baronet flatly 

 declined to agree to ; fair play, as he very justly observed, 

 being a jewel. So when the invalided whip returned to 

 his duties Tom had to look out for a new place. This he 

 very soon got, and he whipped in the whole of the next 

 season, and the one after that, to Major Bullyboy, who 

 hunts the Slopshire Hounds. The principal characteris- 

 tics of the Slopshire country are enormous great strag- 

 gling woodlands, small fields, rough, unkempt looking 

 fences, and a deal of ploughed land. Here Tom learned 

 a good deal of woodcraft, and saw an amount of rough 

 woodland hunting that was invaluable to him in after- 

 life. Finding the country rather too slow for him, he 

 left at the end of his second season, and we find him the 

 following one whipping in to a pack of staghounds. The 

 huntsman leaving soon after, Tom was promoted to the 

 post. Three years with the stag satisfied him, however, 

 for though uncommonly fond of galloping and jumping, 

 yet he still had a hankering after the old legitimate game. 

 So he left the stag, and took to fox again, as first whip this 



