110 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



usual occurrence, I was in a quarter of low cover in the chase 

 before the leaf was off, and some hounds, of whom I was not 

 quite sure, were feathering as if on a fox close around my horse's 

 legs. For a moment or two I had been silent, and during that 

 silence the loud shrill view-holloa startled the air around me; 

 and looking to the side whence it seemed to proceed, and not 

 more than thirty yards from me, there sat the stout yeomanly 

 farmer before alluded to, on his face a most excited expression. 

 It seemed that the first holloa had not met with its usual success 

 of a " hark holloa " from me ; for while I looked at him he stood 

 in his stirrups and gave a second, tickling his sides and rubbing 

 his nose in delight at the confusion he now heard among the 

 galloping feet of horses. My spurs were soon felt by my horse, 

 and charging up to him with the thong doubled, I cried, " You 

 rascal, I have got you."" I confess that my whip was raised, when, 

 instead of the resistance I expected from so young, so stout, and 

 able a man, I beheld the most child-like look in acknowledg- 

 ment of a fault ; instead of a blow, therefore, 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 yeomanly-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 asylum told me 

 that, when they let him have a newspaper during the hunting- 

 season, he used to get the fixtures of my hounds by heart, and, 

 when the morning 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 



