144 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



couple, with his young Irish whipper-in, and with the 

 small field of a by-day that had been so hastily and kindly 

 improvised. Faultless is a word that would do scant 

 justice to the equipment of master and man. It was as 

 workmanlike as it was fashionable ; complete in every 

 attribute; and did my eyes good, at 3000 miles from 

 home. Of the others, Mr. Collyer alone (to whom yet 

 another pack of foxhounds was on its way from the Old 

 Country) was in pink ; and he bestrode a grand grey 

 horse, known as Majesty, fully equal to the fourteen-stone 

 task imposed upon him. By the way, it seems to me, as 

 far as casual opportunity allowed me to form impressions 

 before quitting the sporting sphere of Long Island, that 

 here the little hunting world learn to know most horses by 

 name and history as systematically as the thrusters of 

 Meath tabulate their more important fences, till they 

 become, as it were, household words. 



Perhaps no two names are more familiar to the hunting 

 and horse-loving community of New York than those of 

 the two bays which Mr. Griswold and his man bestrode. 

 And they serve- as admirably to illustrate my subject as 

 they did subsequently to sho\v me how such country 

 should be crossed. The Master, then, was upon Hemp- 

 stead, of whom I soon became fairly entitled to assert 

 that if "a rum 'un to look at, he was a devil to go." A 

 more ornate, or even less inelegant, description would be 

 inapplicable to Hempstead. He has, appropriately, a 

 large knowledge-box, and inappropriately a wasplike waist. 

 Like Mercury he carries his wings on his heels ; and very 

 good use he makes of them — though they make it 

 impossible for him to conceal that he is what is termed in 

 America a "cold-blooded horse." Hempstead's credentials, 

 however, include the fact that he has jumped not less than 

 6 feet 3 inches over the timber at the New York Annual Horse 

 Show. Add to this that he is fifteen years old, that he has 

 for a full proportion of his time been going to hounds 

 upon Long Island, that his legs are clean as they were 

 when he was five — and you will allow that Hempstead has 

 a reasonable right to assume the character of a great hunter 

 and wonderful convevance. 



