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Church than what he really was perhaps the best practical 

 sportsman in England. 



Finding it was useless to argue the point with him, we 

 proceeded to make our own arrangements. 



The appearance of the hunter that the worthy Mr. Briant 

 had sent down for my especial use and service was anything 

 but prepossessing a tall, raw-boned brute, without an ounce 

 of flesh on his bones, with a long, straight ewe-neck, that 

 appeared to have been a subsequent appendage to his 

 original formation, and a vicious pig-eye, that augured no 

 very agreeable disposition, particularly in a woodland 

 country. The impressions excited by his appearance were 

 fully confirmed upon mounting him. Mouth he had none, 

 or at least that member seemed to be devoid of all those 

 sensations which render it useful to the rider, or, judging 

 from the condition of the animal, of much advantage to him- 

 self. Being what is termed rather groggy on all his legs, 

 his movements described a sort of nervous irritability, which, 

 was neither a walk, a trot, or a gallop, but an admixture of 

 all three. He was described to me as an Irish hunter, and 

 I was told not to judge from appearances, which would cer- 

 tainly have authorized the supposition that he would have 

 been of far more use to his owner when boiled down into 

 broth for the hounds than following in their wake. What 

 his previous habits and pursuits had been I had no oppor- 

 tunity of judging as yet whether a recent importation of 

 the speculative horse-dealer, or indigenous to la belle France ; 

 but, such as he was, he was destined to carry me on my 

 debut in the French hunting-field, and I trusted that the 

 easy nature of the ground, and the force of example, might 

 tend to neutralize those defects I had too much reason to 

 apprehend from first impressions. 



In company with a long cavalcade of gaily-dressed horse- 

 men, we proceeded to the carrefour of the forest indicated 



