3 20 THE HINTING FIELD 



Old gentlemen don't like to be laughed at — 

 young ones neither, sometimes — and we saw no more 

 of our " oldest inhabitant " till the middle of March. 

 The season in the meantime had been quiescent, no 

 great advance in vegetation, but no check to what 

 had arrived. As the "old 'un" had rather incon- 

 venienced us by his absence, having had some 

 questions put about events that occurred shortly 

 before the great fire of London, a scene at which he 

 was particularly active, we did not think it prudent 

 to broach the subject of the truant winter, and the 

 "oldest inhabitant" having got through the arrear 

 of antiquarian questions, took his departure in the 

 hurried way people do when there's a disagreeable 

 topic they don't want mentioned. 



Hunting, we reckoned, was fast winding up. March 

 has never much ingratiated itself with us as a hunting 

 month. It sounds harsh and repulsive, speaks rather 

 of high winds, hard dusty roads, and flying fallows, 

 than of that delightful, sloppy, spongy, splash-my- 

 boots state of things peculiar to the legitimate chase. 



Third week in March, and spring slowly, though 

 steadily on the advance. This " oldest inhabitant " is 

 getting " too old," thought we, for he had looked in 

 at our publisher's, on Saturday, (the 14th), and reiter- 

 ated his conviction that we should catch it yet. 



"We really believe we may have too old an oldest 

 inhabitant," continued we, thrusting our hands, a la 

 Ulsraeli, into our breeches pockets, and pacing 

 about our apartment. If we knew where to lay hands 

 on one from a hundred to a hundred and fifty years 

 old, we really think we would "shelf" this oldest 

 inhabitant, for he is evidently getting in arrear of the 

 times. 



A change then came o'er the spirit of our dream. 



All our northern and midland letters of the 18th of 

 March, spoke of the withering influence of the pre- 



