MEET OF THE PYTCHLEY HOUNDS. 145 



at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, are hurrying 

 boxes all containing hunters for the meet. 



On the huntsman and hounds slowly entering and taking 

 up their positions in the small park at Arthingworth, 

 excepting two or three farmers, no one is there to receive 

 or notice them. However, in a few minutes, through 

 large gates and through smaller ones, grooms on and with 

 their horses walk steadily in ; while Charles Payne, occa- 

 sionally chucking from his coat-pocket a few crumbs of 

 bread to his hounds, most of whom are looking upwards 

 at him, leaning over his horse, is holding confidential 

 conversation with a keeper. " It's too bad /" whispers 

 an old farmer, who had just been entrusted with the 

 secret that another fox had last night been shot by 

 poachers ; " and, what's more, it 's been a-going on IN 

 MANY WAYS a long time." "Yes!" replies Charles 

 Payne, looking as calmly and philosophically as Hamlet 

 when he was moralising over Yorick's skull ; " you may 

 rely upon it that, what with greyhounds, and poachers, 

 and traps, and poison, there are very few foxes now- 

 a-days that die a natural death" meaning that they 

 were not eaten up alive by the Pytchley hounds. 



But during all this precious time where are all the 

 scarlet coats ? Oh ! here they come, trotting, riding, and 

 galloping to the meet from every point of the compass, 

 and apparently from every region of the habitable globe, 



