THE CHACE. 
inquires his way to Melton. Having no one to converse 
with, he thus soliloquises as he goes : " What a dolt 
have I been, to spend five hundred a year on my stable, 
in any country than this ! But stop a little : how is it 
that /, weighing but eleven stone four pounds with my 
saddle, and upon my best horse, an acknowledged good 
one in my own country, could neither go so fast nor so 
long as that heavy fellow Maxse ; that still heavier Lord 
Alvanley; and that monster Tom Edge, who, they tell 
me, weighs eighteen stone, at least, in the scales?" At 
this moment a bridle-gate opens in the lane, and a 
gentleman in scarlet appears, with his countenance pale 
and wan, and expressive of severe pain. It is he who 
had been dug out of the ditch in which Jack Stevens 
had left him, his horse having fallen upon him, after 
being suspended on the rail, and broken three of his 
ribs. Feeling extremely unwell, he is glad to meet 
with Snob, who is going his road, to Melton, and 
who offers him all the assistance in his power. Snob 
also repeats to him his soliloquy, at least the sum and 
substance of it, on which the gentleman, recovering a 
little from his faintness by the help of a glass of brandy 
and water at the village, thus makes his comment: 
" I think, Sir, you are a stranger in this part of the 
world." " Certainly," replied Snob, " it is my first 
appearance in Leicestershire." " I observed you in 
the run," continued the wounded sportsman ; " and 
very well you went up to the time I fell, but particularly 
so to the first check. You then rode to a leader, and 
