170 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



twenty minutes' trimming pace ; those leading hounds 

 have flashed towards the pond in the corner, and, hav- 

 ing laved their sides, and lapped, stand, like other young- 

 sters, doubting how to recover the effect of having gone 

 too fast ; the body is casting itself, and spreading round 

 the field. The huntsman prudently leaves them to 

 themselves. He well knows what has happened; but 

 he allows them to make their own cast first for- 

 ward, till they, of their own acco-rd, turn, when he 

 will incline them quietly back ta where they had over- 

 ran the scent two hundred yards behind. See how old 

 Sprightly and Flourish are working on the line ; they 

 have almost puzzled it out amidst the horses, for it is 

 there he went. One hundred and ninety-nine of the 

 best fellows in England, of course utterly unconsci- 

 ously, have come streaming on without a thought of 

 pulling up, till they have fully attained their object 

 of catching the hounds. They are charmed at being 

 with them once more ; are talking and laughing, attri- 

 buting their ever having been further behind, at any 

 moment, to an infernal start, and that confounded, quiet 

 way, in which some persons get them out of covert to 

 ensure a start for themselves, while they were merely 

 discussing the yeomanry races on the up-wind side, 

 and must have heard if there had been half horn and 

 halloo enough away. Vowing never to leave them an 

 instant again, they keep moving as hounds move, or 



