THE FIRST MEET OF THE S HOUNDS. 165 



thorouglibreds, who are wasting their time in the 

 utterly hopeless endeavour of obtaining from the Master 

 a hunter's qualification for horses which have not been 

 legitimately hunted. Their crocks might just as well 

 have been in the stable for all the good they have done 

 to-day in this direction, and if other Masters were 

 equally firm something which bears a very close 

 resemblance to an impudent swindle might be pre- 

 vented. 



But familiar faces are here in a little knot as we 

 speed over a big clover field, and the horseman ahead 

 of us all, "and in very dangerous proximity to the 

 hounds, is Laceby ; though it is only fair to him to 

 admit that circumstances over which he has no control 

 — a pulling horse and a want of knowledge how to ride 

 him — have him in complete subjection. 



The Master, on a splendid bay with black points, 

 holds his own with the utmost ease ; the impatient 

 young lady is in the seventh heaven of delight as the 

 footstrokes of her shapely little chestnut mare thud on 

 the turf; of course the Major is in his usual position, 

 for though his old hunter has small pretensions to 

 breeding or beauty, and does not look particularly like 

 jumping or galloping, it must be indeed a hard day 

 when it does not keep its place in the van, or at any 

 rate turn up, sometimes from unsuspected quarters, at 

 critical moments. 



But are we really in for a run, or is disappointment 

 to be still our lot ? 



