368 ALMOST A CERTAINTY. 



ledge of his manner of managing affairs would be of 

 little service to us : but, speaking as liberally as expe- 

 rience will allow me, I do think the odds are nearly 

 even that we do meet the prototype of friend Nickem : 

 so the odds go in the same ratio that information on 

 this subject may be useful. To be able to judge, by 

 certain signs and appearances, of the propinquity of 

 danger, is a mighty useful sort of knowledge : it does 

 us no harm when no danger is nigh, and does us a 

 great deal of good when it is. I remember being 

 quite of this opinion once under the following cir- 

 cumstances: 



I went to spend a week with a friend in the New 

 Forest during the hunting season, so of course sent 

 my horses down. He was located in the neighbour- 

 hood of Lyndhurst : a more beautiful country cannot 

 be ; that is, for those who like sylvan scenery ; better 

 hounds need not be ; and better sportsmen or a more 

 pleasant gentlemanlike set of men I never met in any 

 place, and most delighted should I be to meet them at 

 any time : but I must allow I should prefer that time 

 being from April to October, as, during the other 

 months, there are hounds going in other countries, 

 and I have an intuitive dislike to knocking my brains 

 about against the limbs of trees, breaking my horse's 

 legs or shins against stumps of the same, or tumbling 

 into holes and bogs. How those used to these things 

 avoided them as they did, I know not ; but this I do 

 know, ten minutes made me acquainted with them 

 all, a degree of intimacy quite unsolicited on my part. 

 We found, pug went off just as I would always wish 

 to see him go (that is, in a country where I could ride). 

 I thought I could do so there ; and, as Pat says, a 

 pretty Molly Hogan I made of myself from entertain- 



