CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 239 



the head, and keeps his eye on what he considers the foremost 

 man to be ready to start the moment he sees him move. Thus 

 he goes Hke a jockey, creeping to the starting post all arms 

 and legs, jealous in the extreme if any horse's head comes 

 before his. " Hold hard ! " is the only hunting term Shabby- 

 hounde knows, and most liberally he vociferates it when any 

 one gets before him. It is a term, however, he pays little 

 attention to, if he is first — the Master not up, and an expectant 

 purchaser in the rear. What places he will then go at ! what 

 risks he will run ! 



A looker-on would fancy he had half a dozen spare necks 

 at home, so little does he seem to care for the one he is 

 wearing. 



How amiable he is about his horses, how tender of their 

 reputation, how anxious to transfer their /aux pas to his own 

 shoulders. We saw old staggering Bill, as he is called, a big, 

 bay, wooden-legged old screw, give him a tremendous fall over 

 a stone wall, which the old beggar absolutely ran at without 

 the slightest attempt at leaping, and not content with tumbling 

 him over on the far side, the indolent brute lay on his leg for 

 some five minutes, which agreeable time was spent by the 

 Captain in alternate exhortations to the horse to rise, and 

 protestations to the parties who came to compel him, that it 

 was " all his own fault ; the horse wasn't to blame in the least." 

 Another day he was riding a groggy old grey in a sharpish 

 burst over a roughish country, where, as usual, the Captain 

 was doing his best to distinguish himself, when in crossing a 

 field of wheat, the veteran fell in a grip, and rolling heavily 

 over him, left the Captain distended for dead. It is a painful 

 sight to see a red coat and white breeches lying full stretch 

 on the land, a painfulness that was increased in the present 

 instance by the apparent lifelessness of the body and the 

 springing of the young green wheat all around. There lay the 

 Captain, and it was not until he was stuck up on end, and 



