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CHAPTER IV. 



" But mirth instead, and dimpling smiles, 

 And wit, that gloomy care beguiles ; 

 And joke, and pun, and merry tale, 

 And toasts that round the table sail : 

 While laughter, bursting through the crowd 

 In vollies, tells our joys aloud." Somerville. 



Theke is many an amusing thing done and said in a 

 hunting-field ; and, though some of the jokes will at 

 times be coarse, still there are many that will bear 

 repeating. An answer from a farmer one day to Sir 

 George Wombwell, who was looking for his second 

 horse, was quaint. 



" I say, damn it, farmer, have you seen my fellow ?" 

 " No ! upon my soul," replied the bluff agricul- 

 turist, with his hands in his breeches pockets, " I 

 never did!" 



A gallant officer, who had lost the hounds, called 

 to a farmer in the Harrow Yale, who was standing at 

 some little distance with a fork on his shoulder, and 

 asked him if he knew which way the hounds were 

 running. The farmer nodded apparently in the affirm- 

 ative, and beckoned the soldier up for further news. 

 My friend rode up, and not being on his guard, was 

 taken prisoner, and, I believe, had to pay for his 

 liberty. I have been told that my gallant friend 

 Colonel Scott, of the Guards, was once seized in the 

 Harrow Yale, and locked up in a mill, but that he 

 made such a terrible row, and was so uneasy in his 



