COLONEL CODSHEAD 319 



of snow here and there, and a night or two's frost, 

 but as a whole, hounds were never stopped. February 

 we have recorded. The early part of the last week 

 of that month was as full of warmth and vegetation 

 as many ordinary ]Mays or Junes. The trees were 

 all budding, the hedges were all bursting into leaf, 

 and gentlemen rode up to their horses' girths in 

 turnip-tops. 



Our "oldest inhabitant" — for all discreet authors 

 keep an oldest inhabitant of their own — our oldest 

 inhabitant always shook his head, however, when he 

 looked in upon us, and we observed upon the extra- 

 ordinary fineness of the season, and the fact of winter 

 having forgotten us. " Don't halloo, before you are 

 clear of the wood," the old gentleman used to say, 

 for he was a hunter in his youth, though when that 

 youth was nobody knows. " You'll catch it yet,'' he 

 used to say, in the oracular style peculiar to old 

 gentlemen, speaking what they think parables. 



Well, we will let him have his fling through January, 

 for we thought it likely we should ^^ catch it," and we 

 backed him well into February too, but when the 

 birds began to sing and Covent-garden to blow, why 

 we thought it was time to follow the fashion, and 

 throw "previous opinions" to the winds ; so the next 

 time the old cock called, we began to crow over him.. 

 " Well, where's winter ? " said we ; " where's all the 

 bad weather you promised us?" "Young man," re- 

 plied he, gravely (we are only sixty-three), "young 

 man," replied he, knitting his shaggy, snow-white 

 brows, " I have lived a long time in the world, and I 

 never knew Death, the Tax-gatherer, or an English 

 winter forget to come. I don't mean to say," con- 

 tinued he, "that we shall have it all in the Me-tro- 

 po-lis, but I mean to say that winter is not over yet." 

 With that he resumed his cocked hat and cane, and 

 went across the water to the other " undying one," at 

 Astley's. 



