210 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



are already arrived ; the greater part of these ser- 

 vants sit down to supper on hares they have poached 

 with their master's greyhounds at the risk of laming 

 them and making them run cunning,— a friend or two 

 of the respective parties commissioned to keep sober, 

 and, when all are overcome by liquor, or fast asleep, to 

 o-ive to the favourite running dogs, who are supposed 

 to be likely to win, about four in the morning, a 

 heavy " stopping ball," made after the suet dumplings 

 often set down before little boys at school, to be eaten 

 first by way of antidote to mutton. The little boys' 

 appetite and the greyhounds' wind are alike choked 

 by this indissoluble pill, if it can be administered. I 

 advise, therefore, all coursers to have a lock-up place 

 for their dogs, with no opening through which a dose 

 of the slows can pass. The dinner hour approaches ; 

 every bed-room in the inn is taken, and the long room 

 used for public balls is laid out with an extensive 

 table for dinner ; every soul is in right good humour, 

 for every man is fond of his dog, and thinks him safe 

 to win. The judge dines there; and it is curious to 

 hear the civil and aiFectionate inquiries after his 

 family made by every courser that has a dog in the 

 stakes ; and as to wine ! there is not a man present 

 who does not ask the judge to drink with him forty 

 times over. Pens and ink come with the dessert ; the 

 ink in a wine-glass is precisely the colour of port; 

 bets are made ; books are produced, and the young 

 chaps of the party inclined for fun, wait till some old 

 courser offers to take the odds against his dos;, and at 

 once offer to bet even that he wins. The old courser's 

 rage at their thus spoiling his market is the only 

 symptom of ill will that is on the first day permitted 

 to appear. On the second day one-half of the com- 

 pany during dinner are sulky, and scarcely speak to 



