176 THE HUNTING-FIELD. 



if a hound speaks, you Avill very likely hear/ Yoi, 

 huck her out there/ What the ^huck^ means 

 is best known to himself and his hounds. It 

 is not unusual to hear with fox-hounds, 'Yoi, 

 push him out there : ' Mullins's Hiuck ' does just 

 as well, though savouring no little of the pro- 

 vincial.^^ 



We had now got on Eartham Common, where 

 Mullins on his big bay, and his whip on his neat 

 stringhalty grey, were surrounded by twenty 

 couple of harriers, neat as print and all alive: 

 three or four farmers, with heavy whips, were 

 thrashing the broom and furze: the Master, a 

 rather deformed man on a handsome grey, was 

 occasionally encouraging some favourite hound; 

 an old general, a friend of his, but somewhat 

 about sixteen stone, was on an enormous beast, 

 a dun with black legs, tail, and mane, with flesh 

 enough on him to supply the pack for six months ; 

 a gentleman farmer, a crack rider on a chesnut 

 so hot that he kept aloof from every one ; the 

 junior partner of a brewery on a very neat bay; 

 a Roman Catholic priest, an attache of the Mas- 

 ter's household, on a nondescript brown mare ; 

 and a very large fat man, on a very small lean 

 Galloway, Avith ourselves, composed the field. 

 Riding up to the Master, ^^ Allow me,'' said I, ^^to 

 introduce my friend, Mr. ." 



^^Most happy to see you, sir, with my little 



