264 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



On a very cold snowy morning, the sleet driving 

 before a northerly wind as sharp and hard as powdered 

 glass, the ditches filled with snow, and the roads opposite 

 every gateway or shard in the hedge thwarted by drift, 

 stained by dust from the ploughed lands, I set off to meet 

 Lord Malmsbury at the Queen public-house, at Avon, 

 to shoot wild- fowl on the river of that name. All the 

 little boys that met me on the way had blue cheeks and 

 red noses, and were muffled to the chin with worsted 

 comforters, truants in some cases tarrying from school 

 to slide on the ponds, or, most unnecessarily, on the 

 foot-paths, to the great risk of foils among red-cloaked 

 old women. There was not a sparrow on the cottage 

 thatch, where the chimney's warmth had thawed the 

 snow, that did not seem to have his great-coat on, so 

 bluffed were the feathers ; and not a frozen-out duck, 

 who did not glance up at the pendent icicles on the 

 roof, and seem to be putting up a prayer for 

 rain. Farm-yards looked comfortable in their deep 

 straw newly flung from the barn-doors ; and pigs 

 thatched themselves with it while they rooted beneath 

 for any fallen grain. Cocks and hens sat under the 

 sheds, all windows were closed, the glass frosted by 

 the breath inside ; and in all houses containing large 

 families a coughing chorus was kept up by every 

 mother's son and daughter: twins hooped a duet; 

 the father or grandfather, out of work or too ill 

 to go to it, occasionally coughed a bass solo, and not 

 a soul seemed able to speak but the good wife, who 

 had the care of every body, and talked for them all ! 

 It was a propitious morning for the sport, and my 

 retriever Jessie and myself got out of the little 

 carriage used for purposes of the field, as if we had 

 been sugared for a Christmas present. Horse to the 



