298 THE HUNTING FHLLI) 



have a vast of lies to answer for. The Colonel, like his horse, 

 has not the slightest natural inclination for hunting — indeed it 

 is rather a punishment to him than otherwise — he hunts for the 

 sake of the society and the good dinners it procures him. 

 After that, we need scarcely say the Colonel is a bachelor. 

 Now, a married colonel, and a bachelor colonel, though born in 

 the same year perhaps, are very different aged people in female 

 estimation ; and our Colonel — albeit, but a yeomanry one — 

 ranks rather as one of those pretty boyish colonels peculiar to 

 the "Guards," than one of the hobbling, frosty-pated, wound- 

 scarred old cocks of the Peninsula or Waterloo. 



A woman's foxhunter and a man's foxhunter are ver}' 

 different things. If a man in a red coat is always at a woman's 

 beck and call — alwajs ready with something to say (a feat, by 

 the wa}-, not in the accomplishment of all) — alwa3'S ready to 

 dance attendance at their carriage sides when they go to see 

 the hounds throw off — always careless of the hounds for the 

 sake of their companj' — they think him a most agreeable, en- 

 gaging, capti\'ating man — just what a foxhunter ought to be, 

 and when the "pasteboards" go out such a man is sure to be 

 remembered. 



The man's foxhunter is one who adores the ladies, delights in 

 their societ}-, would ride a hundred miles in the wet to serve 

 them (on a non-hunting day), but from the greatest beaut\- of 

 whom the joyous Tally Ho! would draw him like a shot. 

 Women like deeds of daring, and the man who would leap 

 turnpike gates, garden walls, spiked palisades, and such-like 

 trifles, would find favour in their eyes for the madness, while 

 the sportsman would set such a performer down for a fool. 



We need not say that Codshead is a woman's foxhunter, any 

 more than that he is not a likely bird to attempt any eccentrici- 

 ties in the leaping waj'. He gets out of that scrape by profess- 

 ing to be one of the " has beens '' — " used to be a desperate 

 rider — would leap almost anything." He is only a "has 



