40 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



rounded, thin shining coats, clean limbs, and all the marks 

 of the best class of English hounds. 



"Aye! Frank," said Archer, as he caught my eye fLxed 

 on them, "you have found out my favorites. Why, Bonny 

 Belle, good lass, why Bonny Belle! — here Blossom, Blos- 

 som, come up and show your pretty figures to your coun- 

 tryman! Poor Hanbury — do you remember, Frank, how 

 many a merry day we've had with him by Thorley Church, 

 and Takely forest? — poor Hanbury sent them to me with 

 such a letter, only the year before he died; and those, 

 Dauntless and Dangerous, I had from Will, Lord Hare- 

 wood's huntsman, the same season !" 



"There never was sich dogs — there never was afore in 

 Orange," said Tom. "I ivill say that, though they be 

 Eiiglish; and though they be too fast for fox, entirely, 

 there never was sich dogs for deer"— 



"But how the deuce," I interrupted, "can hounds be too 

 fast, if they have bone and stanchness!" 



"Stanchness be darned ; they holes them !" 



"No earthstoppers in these parts, Frank," cried Harry; 

 and as the object of these gentlemen is not to hunt solely 

 for the fun of the thing, but to destroy a noxious varmint, 

 they prefer a slow, sure, deep-mouthed dog, that does not 

 press too closely on Pug, but lets him take his time about 

 the coverts, till he comes into fair gunshot of these hunt- 

 ers, who are lying perdu as he runs to get a crack at 

 him." 



"And pray," said I, "is this your method of proceed- 

 ing?" 



"You shall see, you shall see; come get to horse, or it 

 will be late before we get our breakfast, and I assure you 

 I don't wish to lose either that, or my day's quail-shoot- 

 ing. This hunt is merely for a change, and to get some- 

 thing of an appetite for breakfast. Now, Tim, be sure 

 that every thing is ready by eight o'clock at the latest — we 

 shall be in by that time with a furious appetite." 



Thus saying he mounted, without more delay, his favor- 

 ite, the gray; while I backed, nothing loth, the chestnut 

 horse; and at the same time to my vast astonishment, 

 from under the long shed out rode the mighty Tom, be- 

 striding a tall powerful brown mare, showing a monstrous 

 deal of blood combined with no slight bone — equipped 

 with a cavalry bridle, and strange to say, without the 



