196 HUNTING DINNER. 



lifting his hind-quarters too high, as some 

 horses will do in clearing a live fence, 

 or whether the potent liquors I had im- 

 bibed had an effect on my equilibrium, I 

 went over Miser's head, and the old Squire's 

 ringing laugh at my mishap was heard 

 above all the others, though he was on the 

 other side of the field in the road. 



Not in the least hurt, I soon regained 

 my saddle, and after a long run, with only 

 one check the deer laying down in a brook 

 I contrived to be in when he was taken. 

 After a prolonged ride home more than 

 twenty miles with the huntsman and two 

 others, the day's sport wound up, as such 

 days usually do, with an excellent dinner, 

 when social hilarity was continued to a late 

 hour, my somersault provoking general 

 mirth whenever referred to. 



The two following days were spent in the 

 exhibition of a sport that is fast fading 

 away, one which I have touched upon in 

 the early part of this book as peculiar 



