92 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTIXG LIFE. 



ally adopt with horses they either don't own or deserve . 

 During- tliis terribly prolonged prolog'ue^ however, an 

 opportunity was afforded me of looking* over the field ; 

 and I and the soldier gradually deciphered each other. 

 He was a six foot^ fine made fellow, though with rather 

 a ferretish face — larg*e white moustache, and small red eye 

 — mounted on a neat little chesnut mare, certainly not more 

 than fourteen three, wiiich, with his own long- shanks, gave 

 the pair a very jack-a-dandyish a})pearance. His com- 

 panion — the hero or crack man of the hunt — was the only 

 other person I had any particular cause to notice : a thin, 

 light-complexioned young man, in highly polished jack- 

 hoots, with an e3'e-glass stuck in his hat, and a sneering 

 sort of smile on his face j unquestionably under ten stone, 

 but riding a blood bay stallion up to at least fourteen. 

 Now, no sooner was a fox forced to fly — an event which 

 at length did come to pass — than I found this brace of 

 swells had made a dead set at the stranger : every time 

 he made a move, it was ^^eyes right" on him, though 

 for some time without an}^ decided advantage on either 

 side. I had followed King Herod (the stallion) over a 

 cou])le of high new gates, shown him the way at a good 

 drain with a bad take-off, and rather excelled the military 

 man in three or four of his own hop, step, and a jump, 

 or on and off fences, when a low holly-hedge, with a very 

 long drop, which experience enabled them to avoid, struck 

 the balance against me : poor Peter, in sheer surprise, 

 came on his head, and I went over it— a piece of agiHty 

 which I at once saw had the effect of curling the captain's 

 hair-lip, and adding considerably to the broad grin of the 

 hard-riding skeleton. All this put my blood up ; but as 

 soon as ever I got righted again, I luckily had a chance 

 for putting them down : the hounds^ running like mad, 



