2 SKETCHES IN THE HUNTING FIEID. 



We know where he was, together with Prince Geraint, 

 who also had pressing calls to his own domains. 

 They— 



" listened for the distant hunt, 

 And chiefly for the baying of Cavall, 

 King Arthur's hound of deepest mouth ; " 



and Queen Guinevere knew what she was about, and 

 gave Geraint her opinion as to the spot where the pack 

 was most likely to " break covert." 



Before the Lord who had sport with old Christopher 

 Sly the tinker thought of his supper, he charged his 

 huntsman to " tender well his hounds " and discussed 

 their qualities at length ; and much as Theseus was in 

 love, even just before his marriage he could not forget 

 his hounds, but went hunting, and grew enthusiastic in 

 his description of their breed and excellence, telling 

 Hippolyta how they were " crook-kneed and dew-lapped, 

 like Thessalian bulls ; slow in pursuit," he admitted, 

 " but matched in mouth like bells." 



Knowing youths of the present day may hint doubts 

 as to whether Nimrod and his friends would have held 

 their own in a quick twenty minutes over Leicestershire 

 pastures ; for to them oxers and posts and rails were of 

 course unknown, and the country could not have been 

 much enclosed. 



We may as well generously give them the benefit of 

 the doubt, however. Probably they had something in 

 the nature of water-jumping occasionally, and very likely 

 the best of them would have got over the Whissendine 



