HUNTING 187 



exhilarating music which to be appreciated must be heard 

 in the field. 



Away went the horses, but not all their riders, for our 

 friend, the Jew, was caught up like Absalom, in the tree 

 under which he was sittino- while his horse went clean 

 from under him ; and presently, after gesticulating and 

 howling, down dropped this scarlet bundle of oddities, 

 like an over-ripened apple, demonstrating, as ISTewton's 

 did, the centre of gravity as he came on a moist spot of 

 his mother-earth ; while his companions, galloping away, 

 had only time to look back on their saddles, and smile at 

 the very ludicrous appearance he made. 



Upon another occasion, when, after a sharp run, we 

 had killed our fox in a farm-yard, near Droxford, and 

 stood waiting the arrival of the master of the pack, he 

 came trotting in at the gate with his habitual smile, when, 

 in endeavouring to cross the yard, his horse suddenly 

 sank up to the girth in the straw that covered lightly the 

 manure. The more the animal plunged the deeper he 

 went in the mire, ^vhen the alarmed Jew — supposing he 

 was going to the bottomless pit, and the disposal of his 

 ill-gotten wealth occurring to him at the same time 

 — exclaimed with extended arms and terror-stricken 



visage,- 



" My vife, my vife ! I leave all to my vife ! " 



Many other ludicrous feats I could recount of this 



redoubtable follower of Nimrod, who was the lauo-hino-- 



stock of the county — but let the above suffice. 



The sudden appearance of this strange gentleman, in 



one of the first mansions in the county, was a mystery ; 



his antecedents were not known, and the manner in which 



