THE KILKENNY HOUNDS. 249 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE KILKENNY HOUNDS. 



Reader, it was during Christmas week that I visited 

 an old and valued friend in Kilkenny county. It was 

 a right merry time, and yours truly felt as comfortable 

 and gay as need be, when, after riding a good run, 

 on a perfect hunter, over the Freshford country, he 

 found himself with his legs stretched under the ma- 

 hogany of his kind host, and doing justice to his hos- 

 pitality. The ladies had retired to the drawing-room, 

 and were talking, probably, of the many estimable 

 qualities of absent friends of their own sex (they 

 always do, you know), of the latest fashionable intel- 

 ligence, or the marked attention of Harry Hiover to 

 Bella Dashaway. The "youngsters" made their exit 

 after dessert to quarrel over sugar-plums and Christ- 

 mas gifts, while myself and a few more lovers of fox- 

 hunting remained chatting over the events of the day, 

 the likelihood of Jack Frost interfering with our hunt- 

 ing manoeuvres, and other kindred subjects. It was a 

 fearful night ; Boreas was as rude as possible ; Jupiter 

 Pluvius had laid on the main, and the rain rattled 

 against the window-panes so loudly that it caused the 

 fox-terrier, stretched on the hearth-rug, to growl at 

 the interruption to his peaceiul slumbers. 



