CHAPTER XXIII. 



TROST-BOUND. 



" i^^^^TORY? God bless you, I have none to 

 tell," was the oft - quoted reply of 

 Canning's needy knife-grinder ; and I 

 feel very much in the same plight as 

 that wandering and little-informed tinker. With 

 the thermometer below zero, and the Yorkshire 

 moors and other places covered with snow to the 

 depth of two feet, there can be little to say about 

 hunting, that's clear, and one is forced to exclaim 

 with Pope, '' Dogs, ye have had your day," at any 

 rate for a while. Well, if one cannot talk of hounds, 

 there is no reason for refraining from looking at 

 horses, and speaking of them, for a matter of that. 



Having arrived at this conclusion, I wended my 

 way along Piccadilly, en route for Tattersall's, and 

 was not long before I fell in with some acquaint- 

 ances. First was a frozen-out Melton man, who is 

 always in the first flight, and he tells me that the 

 Cottesmore have had good sport, under the new 

 and popular management of Lord Carington, and 

 we part with the hope of meeting before many 

 days have elapsed at Melton Spinneys, Gartree 

 Hill, Ashby pastures, Ranksborough Gorse, or some 



