114 SKETCHES IN THE HUNTING FIE ID. 



response as we cantered on together towards where the 

 hounds had checked a couple of fields beyond. 



If the Major had struck me as being reserved, he was un- 

 questionably most polite of speech, and as we proceeded 

 onward we naturally verged into the subject of horse- 

 flesh, which enabled me to pay a well- deserved compli- 

 ment to the four-year-old iron-grey horse he was riding. 



"A good-looking young horse you are on to-day 

 — sir," I said, just stopping in time to avoid saying 

 " Major." 



''Yes; I think he will grow into a serviceable animal," 

 he replied, glancing as he spoke down the fence we were 

 approaching, and over which his groom, on a raking 

 chestnut mare, bounded in the most irreproachable 

 form. " My servant is on the pick of my stable this 

 morning," he continued ; " but I was anxious to see 

 what the young one was like." 



It would only have been courteous, I thought, if the 

 Major had said something amiable about my horse, a 

 nearly thoroughbred bay, which came very near indeed to 

 my beajt ideal of a hunter ; and presently he did glance 

 over my steed, slightly — very slightly — contracting his 

 eyebrows as his eyes fell on the animal's near hind- 

 leg. I, too, had looked at that hock several times 

 before writing rather a stiff cheque. Was it just a 

 little full r and, if so, what could have caused it ? 

 Spavin is such an ugly word I did not like to think 

 of it, and had succeeded in persuading myself that it 

 was all right ; but the Major's glance falling just on 



