136 re:miniscences of a huntsman. 



instead of tlie resistance I expected from so young, so 

 stout, and able a man, I beheld the most child-like look 

 in acknowledgment of a fault; instead of a blow, there- 

 fore I told him I would break every bone in his skin if 

 he did not quit my hounds and go home, or if he ever 

 appeared in my company again. A simple touch of 

 the hat, and a turn of his horse, accompanied by the 

 words, " Very well, sir," was all the answer he made, 

 and then he rode away. For that season I never 

 saw him more. It chanced in the succeeding summer 

 I accompanied my friends Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe to 

 see the lunatic asylum at Bedford, and among the 

 melancholy occupants I beheld around me, straight 

 up to me came with the greatest joy the stout yeo- 

 manly-looking farmer. He was delighted to see me, 

 and talked of hunting, but always as if he had kept 

 hounds and hunted the country himself; of course I 

 humoured him and left him, he being very anxious 

 that I should prolong my stay. The surgeon of the 

 asvlum told me, that when they let him have a news- 

 paper during the hunting season, he used to get the 

 fixtures of my hounds by heart, and when the morn- 

 ino- arrived, the old view holloa startled his fellow 

 prisoners at daylight, the stout yeoman damning every 

 sane and insane soul he saw around him, for being 

 late in not putting on their boots and breeches. The 

 hunting day over, he would assume his usual quietude 

 till the next appointment. There, in the asylum I 

 left the poor fellow for months. They let him out 

 into the garden during this time, finding him better, 

 when he broke away over the country, chased by all 

 the attendants, who had some difficulty in a re- 

 capture. Time sped on, and the next year while 

 drawing the chase, up trotted to my side the late 



