SQUIRE OSBALDESTON 91 



formed a tolerably correct estimate ; of the horses, I 

 expected to have seen everything delightful to the eye ; 

 with respect to appearance — I may say beauty — on 

 that I had formed an erroneous conclusion. Touching 

 the whippers-in, I had pictured them smart in the 

 extreme ; and of the country, that it abounded in 

 double posts and rails, fences of impracticable magni- 

 tude, and brooks innumerable. Having indulged in 

 this little dream, and discoursed to my friend, who, 

 like myself, was a novice in the country, on the 

 probabilities of what we should find, we arrived at the 

 appointed place, and I will now proceed to give some 

 description of the realities. 



Instead of finding Mr. Osbaldeston what I had 

 fancied, I found him attired in precisely what a master 

 of hounds ought to be ; that is clad in what is necessary 

 to comfort and convenience, without any superfluous 

 attempts at 'effect;' and although hats were the fashion 

 of the day for gentlemen, he wore a cap similar to 

 those of the men ; an unassuming single-breasted coat, 

 white cords, with top-boots, neither peculiar for their 

 whiteness or any eccentricity of shade, comprised the 

 Squire's costume. Of the hounds, they certainly 

 exhibited everything and more than what I had anti- 

 cipated, much as I had heard in their praise, and 

 perfect as I expected them to be. The whippers-in, 

 neat and clean, but everything apparently selected 

 with an eye to business, for they were not half so smart 

 as some which I had recently seen in a provincial 

 country. The horses nearly thorough-bred, but 

 certainly chosen more for their intrinsic goodness than 

 appearance ; in fact had they been offered singly for 

 sale in a fair they would not at dealer's valuation have 

 realised five and thirty pounds apiece, though from 

 their known good qualities they would have commanded 

 long prices at Tattersall's, where scratches and scars 

 from stubs and briars, or blows from stakes, are not 

 much heeded. 



I could not fail to admire the precision with which the 



