163 



CHAPTER VIII. 



" Grief's tearful frown upon the landscape lours ; 

 I've lost the comrades of my leisure hours," 



Having made the before-mentioned arrangement with 

 j\lr. Wilkins, and seen my hounds depart for the 

 I^chley kennel, I could not bear to look on the 

 deserted doors at home. When, after a time, I did 

 go into the kennel, there were a thousand remem- 

 brances to make me melancholy. Where were the 

 rows of attached and sensible faces that used to stand 

 or sit in the yard round the feeding-house door, each 

 to wait till I called them to their dinner ? — every 

 hound always on one particular spot, and one at the 

 door, kissing the whip in my hand, and asking it to 

 touch her head, to signal her in, but not attempting 

 to pass as the door opened to some light feeder 

 whom I had called before her ; — a hundred and 

 twenty silent and submissive creatures, every one 

 knowing his or her particular name, and distinguish- 

 ing that name though others had appellations that 

 sounded like it, and though hungry and full of ani- 

 mal anxiety to feed, not one attempting to pass the 

 constantly opening door till called by name to do so. 

 There was the bench on which they slept so com- 

 fortably on their clean wheaten straw, lapped the one 

 over the other, like a Chinese puzzle made of hounds, 

 after they came home from himting, and where, after 

 cub-hunting, having had my breakfast, I used to pay 

 them a visit, their coats scarcely dry of the woodland 



M Z 



