LADY FOXHUNTERS 283 



" What a crash they make, and echo seemingly takes 

 pleasure to repeat the sound. The astonished traveller for- 

 sakes his road, lured b}- its melody : the listening plowman 

 now stops his plow {s/c in the original, as the lawyers 

 say), and every distant shepherd neglects his flock, and 

 runs to see him break. \\'hat jo}- ! what eagerness in every 

 face ! " 



And then Peter prigs a bit of poetry from Somerville, 

 which we in our turn will prig from Peter, requesting the 

 accommodating reader to turn the sentiment about the 

 forgetfulness of sorrow into Smashgate's total forgetfulness 

 of Cottonwool's dinner : — 



" How liappy ait thou man when thou'rt no more 

 Thyself I When all the pangs that grind thy soul. 

 In rapture and in sweet obli\ion lost, 

 "^'ield a short interval and ease from pain ' " 



We like old Somerville for that idea ; it speaks the sports- 

 man. Sporting writing has this charm, it is sure to tell with 

 sportsmen. Others may turn up their noses (some people's 

 noses seem only made for turning up), and saj' "what stuff! " 

 but good sporting feeling is sure to tell where it is intended. 

 Who has not felt one tallj^-ho ! banish old dull care, for as 

 every Frenchman has a "suit," so every Englishman has a 

 sorrow, and it is onlj- by increasing their size that we are 

 sensible of the smallness and absurdity of the old ones. It has 

 been well said that an Englishman is only thoroughly happy 

 when he is miserable. 



Be that as it may, however, Sir Rasper Smashgate had as 

 few cares as most people. His hopes and fears were centred 

 in his stud, with the addition, perhaps, of his razors. If he 

 got a good shave in the morning he was generally happy for 

 the rest of the da}-, for he had twelve as good hunters as a 

 si.xteen stone man cotild desire, with two thorough-bred hacks, 

 and a stud-groom equal to his business, and yet not abo\e it. 



