64 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



little bathing-place which M. and myself had made by 

 deepening a small willow-fringed spruit or brook that ran 

 at no great distance from the bungalow, and which 

 formed our matutinal place of ablution in fair weather 

 and in foul. 



It was well that we laid in a goodly store of pro- 

 visions, for our guests by this time numbered no fewer 

 than twenty-two hungry men, nearly half of whom had 

 either hacked or driven out of Johannesburg long before 

 sunrise, amongst them the wife of the horsedealer men- 

 tioned earlier herein, a keen little Irish sportswoman, 

 who informed us, in the richest of brogue, that " Sure if 

 she had a five-pound note for ivery drag she'd seen with 

 the King's, it's a warm woman she'd be that day indade." 



The expression on Tom P.'s weather-beaten face 

 when we took him round to inspect the " pack," which 

 was playing up merry hades in the stables, would have 

 been worth a " Jew's eye " to a sporting artist ; and no 

 fond mother ever hugged her offspring closer in passing 

 through a mob than did honest Tom his couple of 

 aristocratic English foxhounds when that canine rabble 

 tried to strike up an acquaintance with them. " 'Ware 

 cur dog. Guardsman." " Come in, Amazon." " Get 

 out, you ugly yaller varmint " (as he took a flying kick 

 at one of the Kaffir dogs which had evidently fallen 

 violently in love with old Amazon). " Dear me, I never 

 set eyes on such a lot o' rag-tail devils in all me born 

 days," cried Tom in dismay, as he whipped off the 

 nondescript " pack " from his beloved hounds. Gad ! 



