338 The Poacher. 



I asked the boy whether he knew what he wanted, but all I 

 could get out of him was, that " Master was ill in bed, and wanted 

 to see me mmmut about a horse." I rode over directly, bidding my 

 man wait till I returned. The lodge was not two miles distant, 

 and on my arrival I found my friend Mr. Russell, or Jack Russell, as 

 we all called him, propped up in bed ; his jolly rubicund face set 

 off to advantage by a clean, white, high tasselled nightcap, his right 

 arm bandaged in splints, resting on a pillow -, his countenance the 

 very picture of despair. 



"Why, whatever is up now, Jack?" was my first question, when 

 he bade me sit down by his bedside, and listen to his tale of woe. 



Jack Russell was one of the hardest-riding farmers in our hunt, 

 and always in the first flight. He rode his horses to sell ; and cared 

 little what sort of a harvest he got, so long as only the hunting season 

 was open. Now, this year he had a magnificent four-year old, 

 which he had bought at Horncastle, and in which Jack (who was 

 seldom deceived in the points of a horse) saw, as he termed it, a 

 little fortune. He had never yet shown the horse the hounds he 

 had quietly been bottled up at the lodge, taking his lessons over the 

 farm under his owner's able tuition. But Jack had intended that 

 he was soon to "come out," and he had been anxiously waiting for 

 this Findon Toll-bar meet, when he meant, as he termed it, to 

 " have a cut at every hard rider in the hunt " with him. No horse 

 could promise better a splendid fencer, with a good turn of speed ; 

 as temperate as the oldest hunter in the field, and of a make and 

 shape that were sure to strike the eye at once. The long-wished- 

 for day had come at last, and on the Thursday, at Bramley market, 

 Jack confided to his friends " that something was coming to Findon- 

 gorse on the Saturday which was worth looking at." Jack was a 

 jovial sort of fellow, and was always about the last to leave the far- 

 mer's ordinary at the Red Lion ; on this occasion he sat a little 

 longer than usual. The price of wheat was up, the farmers were 

 in high spirits, and the astonishing sport which our hounds had 

 shown this season, was, of course, the leading topic of conversation 

 among a company, every man of whom was either a breeder or a 



