310 THE HUNTING FIELD 



life. Some men pass with the ladies for great sports- 

 men because they never get falls ; the dear creatures 

 never imagining for a moment that they never get 

 them because they never give their horses a chance 

 of giving them them. So, again some ladies, when 

 they hear of Captain Fearnought or Mr. Daredevil 

 getting two or three tumbles a-day, immediately set 

 them down as desperate tailors, imagining, of course, 

 that they tumble off. To adapt the doctrine of 

 hunting mischances to the "meanest capacity," the 

 horses should be described as getting the falls and 

 not the men. But let us paint away at the Colonel, 

 for he covers a great breadth of canvas. 



The most forlorn looking things in a hunting field 

 are a pair of old tight moleskin breeches, bursting 

 at the knees. How Colonel Codshead ever got his 

 great uncompromising legs wheedled into his, passes 

 our comprehension. Were it not for the danger that 

 would attend the performance in consequence of the 

 frailty of the article, we should imagine that he had 

 had recourse to the old expedient of being slung into 

 them, as it is said the booted dandies of George the 

 Third's time used to be into theirs, when an exquisite 

 giving an order to his leather breeches maker added 

 these emphatic words, "Mind, if I can get into them 

 I won't have them." Colonel Codshead's moleskins 

 have seen many seasons — they are far anterior to the 

 coat — indeed we remember thinking, when it was 

 launched, that it would have been as well if he had 

 carried his attentions a little lower, and got himself a 

 pair of new breeches also. Since then the button- 

 holes have been acting the part of a boy's nick-stick 

 prior to the holidays. Each succeeding season has 

 scored a rent until there is not a button-hole without 

 a darn. The whole ten buttons look as if they were 

 ready to fly off at a moment's notice. Tremendous 

 work it must have been getting them coaxed together ! 

 The boots are quite of a piece with the breeches, with 



