HORSES AND HOUNDS. 173 



wards, and, at about sixty yards distance, as Falstaff says, he 

 " lets drive " at Jim's seat, which was exposed by his stooping 

 position, and a particular patch of white corduroy attached. 

 The uproar that ensued was indescribable almost. It was Jim's 

 turn now to cry out, which he did with a vengeance ; and, 

 scrambling over the gate, he ran away from the field as fast as 

 his legs could carry him, leaving, in his confusion, both nets and 

 hare behind. The governor, having coolly re-loaded, approached 

 the spot, took up the hare and nets, and carried them home. 

 " Who is master now T soliloquized my father ! The next day 

 it was all over the parish that Jim had met with a sad mishap 

 in the night, but he would not tell hoiv, and was obliged to take 

 to his bed ; his wife having some trouble to pick the shots out. 



In a few days, however, he was all right again ; and happen- 

 ing to meet the squire, he asked him what had been the matter. 

 " Oh, sir," said Jim, " you shouldn't have done it ; it were too 

 near, it were, and 'twere like hot pins running into me." "What's 

 the fool talking about T said the squire ; " I suppose you got 

 drunk coming home from market, tumbled into a black- 

 thorn bush, and then fancied some one had been peppering 

 you." " Oh, no, squire, 'twernt no fancy, and I warn't drunk, 

 and if I had, the tickling I got would soon a sobered anybody ; 

 but I wont be caught at that game any more, you may depend 

 on't." "Very well," said the squire; "keep to your good resolu- 

 tions, and here's a plaister to heal your wounds this time." 



Those were troublesome times, and we did not stick at trifles; 

 being obliged sometimes to take the law into our own hands. 

 As a boy, I never went to bed without having a gun loaded 

 Tinder my pillow, and a terrier sleeping in the room. We lived 

 in a solitary house, far away from any village ; and, as highway 

 robberies were frequent, and housebreaking going on pretty ex- 

 tensively, we were always prepared with dogs, guns, and pistols 

 for an attack. A man was stopped and murdered not a mile 

 from our house, on the high road, and a regular footpad (as they 

 were then called) took up his quarters in a wood not a hun- 

 dred yards from the lodge gates. This fellow actually stopped 

 my cousin, who was taking a walk with her maid, close by the 

 wood in open day ; but his behaviour was so gentleman-like (so 

 she expressed it), that she begged he might not be prosecuted on 

 her account, if even caught. Her account was that, as she was 

 walking along the lane, by the wood hedge, this man made his 

 appearance, took off his hat on approaching her, and, politely 

 apologizing for his intrusion, said he was in sore distress, and 

 obliged to live upon what he could get, he acknowledged dis- 

 Jwmstly but that he had a wife and children nearly starving. 



