6o THE HAUGHTYSHIRE HUNT. 



fine specimen of what is known in the vulgar tongue as a 

 ' black eye.' 



"What ho, Tomaso ! you look as if you'd fallen down and 

 trodden on yourself ! Been a mucker? " 



" You've guessed it in once," replied the other sententiously. 

 " I have been a mucker — an almighty mucker, and no error. 

 The silly fool " 



" Who ? you or the horse ? " 



" Shut up. The silly fool half refused, and then tried to 

 jump it ; came down a buster, and we rolled over together. 

 And now the beggar's lame." 



" It don't matter. I've got you a mount for Saturday ; 

 Trousers's new gee. He's a clinker, but he sailed with 

 Trou-Trous, carried him all over the place, jolly nearly to 

 where we killed " 



"Oh, you did kill ? " interrupted Tommy, looking very 

 disappointed. (Well, it is disappointing, isn't it, to come 

 down in the early part of a run, just as the fun's beginning, 

 and then to hear that your friends have had a good gallop, 

 and wound up with a kill ?) 



" Yes. Eipping gallop, and killed him in those peaty 

 meadows. Well, the gee put poor old Trousers down in a 

 ditch near the finish, and we had to dig him out with a spade; 

 the horse, I mean ; not Trousers. But he is a devilish good 

 horse, I can tell you, and if he had a man on his back, 

 would be the best hunter in the county. But Trousers ! — 

 well, there you are, you know ! And so I at once suggested 

 that he should let you ride the horse next time." 



Sir Tommy looked at his friend suspiciously. Self-efface- 

 ment was hardly one of Jack Dashwood's prominent qualities. 



