14 Hunting in the Golden Days. 



character is well known ; there is no harm in him, and 

 most of his friends know that no answer is required. 

 He is an open-hearted little man, and many of his 

 patients have heard him speak against medicine, 

 although it is his calling. " What you want," he would 

 say, *' is plenty of horse exercise and a little dieting. 

 Don't take too much medicine ; it only wears out the 

 stomach. When I first began to practise I used to be 

 much fonder of prescribing draughts and pills than 

 I am now. But as we grow older we grow wiser, and 

 we begin to learn something when we get one leg in the 

 grave." 



By the silence in covert it is clear that there is a 

 blank draw, so the hounds are taken off to Jobblin's 

 Wood, about half a mile away. Here they are more 

 fortunate, for almost as soon as they get into cover, they 

 proclaim they have found their fox. Away tear 

 the heavy weights, Goodbery and Oldwig included, for 

 is it not half the battle to get well away ? Crack goes 

 the top rail as a blundering three-year-old gives 

 the timid ones a chance. The hounds are running 

 very keen on a strong scent, and although the field are 

 not mounted on such mettle as is to be found in the 

 highflying country of Leicestershire, yet they are on 

 good, useful horses, made, perhaps, more for endurance 

 than pace, and most of them safe conveyances into the 

 bargain. " When you get over forty, however sporting 

 you may be," Goodbery is fond of saying, " the 

 less falls you have the better, although in my time I 

 have had my share, and more, too, for the matter of 

 that." 



Up comes our host of the Manor House, mounted on 

 a cocktailed bay, that looks a hunter all over, and 

 worthy of the noble-looking man who bestrides him. 



