148 



THE HUNTING-FIELD. 



his nags have one tolerably sound leg, it is more 

 than they usually boast: he has them in the 

 highest possible condition, and reversing the com- 

 mon practice of men, for the first ten minutes he is 

 never seen, but so soon as he and his cripples get 

 warmed, their breeding tells, and blood from the 

 best stables in England thus sends along legs 

 not often seen in any stable but his own. 

 Towards the close of a run, the rector and curate 

 often have a twist at each other, and Bob is 

 always willing, like the Vicar of Wakefield, to 

 have at ' the head of the Church,^ and two better 

 horsemen in good-natured strife never contended 

 for first in. 



" Do you see that short, stout-looking man, with 

 three times as much clothes on him as any one 

 else, and those three times too big for him : that 

 is Frank Holloway, a farmer, breeder, hunting 

 and steeple-chase rider, trotting rider and driver, 

 pigeon shooter, master of a nondescript pack of 

 rough and ready dogs, that will hunt any thing, 

 and at times hunt all things. He, is moreover, a 

 wrestler, and has come off victorious in several 

 mills, because they could not give him thrashing 

 enough to stall him off. He is rough rider to 

 the whole country ; any reprobate that no one 

 else will mount is sent to Frank Holloway. He 

 has been in every ditch, and has tumbled into or 

 over every fence in the country, and I believe has 



